I 



3=^-^ 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



Ohio State Forestry Association, 



AT ITS MEETING IN COLUMBUS, MAKCH 28th, 1884, 



TOGETHER WITH 



u^ I^E^OIST 



UPON THE 



FOREST CONDITION OF OHIO, 



ILLUSTRATED BY CHARTS BY THE FORESTRY DIVISION 



OF THE 



United States Department of Agriculture. 



Published by Order of the Legislature. 



COLUMBUS: 

Q. J. BRAND & CO., STATE PRINTERS. 
1884. 



PROCEEDINQS 



OF THE 



Ohio State Forestry Association, 

AT ITS MEETING IN COLUMBUS, MARCH 28th, 1884, 



TOGETHER WITH 



-^ ISE^OIST. 



UPON THE 



FOREST CONDITION OF OHIO, 



ILLUSTRATED BY CHARTS BY THE FORESTRY DIVISION 



OF THE 



United States Department of Agriculture. 



Published by Order of the Legislature. 



COLUMBUS: 

G. J. BRAND & CO., STATE PRINTERS. 
ISM. 






3 OCT 1905 
D.ofO, 



OFFICERS 



OHIO STATE FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 

FOR 1884. 



Peksident, 
JUDGE WARREN HIGLEY. 

Vice-Presidents, 

HON. HORACE WILSON, 
GEN. DURBIN WARD, 
DR. A. T. KECKELER. 

Secretary, 
PROF. ADOLPH LEUE 

Treasurer, 
JOHN H. McMAKIN. 



Directors, 



JOHN B. PEASLEE, 
COL. A. E. JONES, 
HON. EMIL ROTHE, 
HON. LEO WELTZ, 



WALDO F. BROWN, 
HON. LEOPOLD BURCKHARDT, 
DR. FRANCIS PENTLAND, 
I. N. LA BOITEAUX. 



Committee on Arbor Day Exercises, 
JOHN B. PEASLEE, Ph.D., Chait 



HON. EMIL ROTHE, 
PROF. W. H. VENABLE, 
HON. LEO WELTZ, 
DR. FRANCIS PENTLAND, 



COL. A. E. JONES, 
REUBEN H. WARDER, 
WALDO F. BROWN, 
HON. CHARLES REEMELIN. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE OHIO STATE FORESTRY 

ASSOCIATION. 



By ADOI.PH LEUJfi, Secrdary. 



The Ohio State Forestry Association was formally organized in 
Cincinnati, January I3th, 1883, on which day the Constitution and By- 
Laws were adopted, and the officers elected. The attendance was suiall, 
amounting in all to but 13 men, all of whom were enrolled as membern 
of the organization. *• 

For the first three months, meetings were held once a week, and 
thereafter every two weeks. 

The first committee appointed was ih»i on Legislation, consisting 
of Judge Warren Higley, Gen. Durbin Ward and Hon. Emil Rothe. 
This committee was instructed to (h'alt a bill in the interest of forestry 
in Ohio. After two preliminary reports, which were discussed by the 
Association, the committee presented, in the beginning of February, 
1883, a bill, entitled. An Act to encourage forest-culture in the State of Ohio, 
which was adopted by the Association, and forwarded to Senator Horace 
Wilson, through whose efforts it passed the Senate, but in the House it 
was never brought up for second reading. 

On January 22d, 1883, the Association, through a committee con- 
sisting of Dr. John A. Warder, Judge W^arren Higley, Supt. John B. 
Peaslee, Hon. Emil Rothe and Adolph Leue, presented a memorial to 
the Congress of the United States asking the removal of the tariff on 
timber. 

In addition to the foregoing proceedings, and others, less significant, 
the Association, aiming at mutual instruction in matters pertaining to 
forestry, listened at each of the meetings to a discourse on some forestal 
subject. The following is a complete list of the papers presented and 
discussed at these meetings : 

*' Planting of Trees on the Banks of Railroads." By Judge Warren Higley. 

" Suggestion for a Library and Museum." By Prof. R. B. Warder. 

" Among the Trees with the Poets." By Prof. W. H. Venable. 

" Structure and Life of Trees." By Dr. John A. Warder. 

" What we may Learn from Trees." By Hon. Chas. Reemelin. 



b REPORT OF THE 

On the 25th and 26th of April, 1883, an Ohio State Forestry Conven- 
tion was held in Cincinnati, under the auspices of this Association. 
The convention took place in Melodeon Hall, where a very creditable 
exhibit of forest products had been arranged. The principal exhibiters 
were : The D. E. Albro Company, of Cincinnati, exhibiting its very 
fine collection of carefully finished specimens of foreign and domestic 
woods; Dr. Joljn A. Warder, exhibiting his rare collection of cones and 
acorns, also a complete set of botanical specimens of all the different 
oaks growing in this country, and sections of wood; Adolph Leue, of 
Cincinnati, exhibiting a complete set of the forestry bulletins of the 
United States Census Bureau, also a number of maps and charts illus- 
trating modes of forest-culture and forest management in Germany, and 
a collection of sections of wood, bark used for tanning purposes, and 
seeds ; Dr. A. D. Binkerd, of Cincinnati, exhibited a large collection of 
wood grown in Pennsylvania; Waldo F. Brown, of Oxford, 0., ex- 
hibited seeds and sections of Rohinia psevdacacia (black locust) of differ- 
ent ages. 

The exhibit, as a whole, was one of great interest, not only to those 
who attended the convention, but also to others, who would come in 
during the hours of recess. 

Th^ convention itself was extremely interesting. The papers pre- 
sented were well prepared and well delivered. Some of them were pub- 
lished in full '-y the Cincinnati dailies, others in parts, and a few in 
periodical journals. 

The following is a complete list of the papers entered for the 
convention: 

*1. Lessons to be learned from the Forests of Western Asia. By Prof. H. S. 
Osborn, LL. D., Oxford, O. 

2. What is a tree ? By John A. Warder, of North Bend, O. 

3. The pro and con of Forestry. By W. I. Chamberlain, Secretary State Board 
of Agriculture, Columbus, O. 

4. Two Letters on Forestry. By Hon. Cassius M. Clay, White Hall, Ky. 

5. Is Forest Culture Profitable in this Country ? By Hon. Emil Rothe, Cin- 
cinnati, O. 

6. Hints on Tree-planting. By Bernhard E. Fernow, New York. 

7. Tree-planting on Highways. By Hon. L. M. Bonham, Oxford, O. 

8. Need of State Arboreta. By Prof. Wm. R. Lazenby, Columbus, O. 

9. Our Next Problem. By Adolph Leue, Cincinnati, O. 

10. Tree-culture on Prairies. By Isaac Smucker, Newark, O. 

11. Natural Reproduction of Forests. By Dr. John A. Warder, North Bend, 0. 

12. Hints from Nature on Forest Culture. By M. C. Read, of Hudson, O. 



OHIO FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. / 

13. Distribution and Geographical Range of the Forest-trees of North America 
By Dr. Geo. Vasey, Washington, D. C. 

14. The Ruin of the Hills. By Dr. Dan. Millikin, Hamilton, O. 

15. Exhibition of Forest-products and Forest-implements, in connection 
with Forestry Conventions. By Adolph Leue, Cincinnati, O. 

16. Forest Administration in Germany. By Robert Kuehnert, Cincinnati, O 

17. Railroad Ties. By Albert Wetterstroem, Cincinnati, O. 

18. Profits of the Culture of the Black Locust. By Waldo F. Brown, Oxford, O. 

19. List of Plants in Hardin County, 0. By W. C. Hampton, Mt. Victory, O. 

20. Forests of the Allegheny Valley. By. Dr. A. D. Binkerd, Cincinnati, O. 

21. The Recent Ohio Floods (1883). By Prof. N. H. Egleston, Washington, D. C. 

22. Trees in Mythology. By Prof. W. H. Venable, Cincinnati, O. 

23. Life and Labors of Adolph Strauch. By Adolph Leue, Cincinnati, O. ' 

24. Plan of Instrnction in an American School of Forestry. By Adolph Leue, 
Cincinnati, 0. 

An excellent address on Forestry in general was delivered by Dr. 
Geo. B. Loring, Commissioner of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.,on the 
evening of April 25th. 

The successful celebration of Arbor Day in Cincinnati, which has 
become famous, was mainly due to this Association.* 

In the meetings immediately foil wing the Convention, the subject 
of "Forestal Experiment Stations," to which the attention of the Asso- 
ciation had been called by the Secretary in his paper entitled "O^fr 
Next Problem,^' was taken up and discussed. The manner in which such 
stations are organized in Germany were duly considered, and the plans 
proposed f'or similar institutions in this country examined ; the first was 
found impossible in this country, the latter impracticable. It was then ^ 
(June, 1883,) that the Secretary laid before the Society a new plan, 
which after the meeting of the American Forestry Congress, held in St. 
Paul, in August, 1883, has become known as the Ohio plan, which was 
adopted. Convinced of the great utility of such Experiment Stations, 
a committee was appointed to devise ways and means to effect an organi- 
zation of a Station in Ohio; this committee never reported, and con- 
sequently no organization was effected. 

The illness and subsequent death of Dr. John A. Warder, the Hon- 
orary President of the Association, which occurred July 14th. 1883, was 
a great loss, not only to Ohio, but to the whole country.f His absence 

'■'Ohio was the first State in which the schools took so prominent a part in the celebration of Arbor 
Day. It has been frequently remarked, that the 27th of April is too late for planting trees in Southern 
Ohio. The Association, fully aware of this, recommended in a circular, that the trees be planted 
earlier, and that on that day only the ceremonies be performed. The modus operandi is explained 
very elaborately in a report of the Committee on Arbor Day Celebration, which is now being published 

tAn account of the life of Dr. John A. Warder is to be found in American Journal of Forestry for' 
August, 1883, published by Robert Clarke, Cincinnati. 



8 EEPORT OF THE » 

from the meetings was felt by every member, and it seemed as though 
the prosperity of the Association was going to decline ; for during the 
summer months there were but a few meetings, and the attendance at 
each was small. The meeting of the American Forestry Congress in St. 
Paul, August 8 and 9, 1883, which was more largely attended by 
Ohioans than by representatives of any other State of the Union, gave 
new life and energy to the Society. The fall meetings were, as a rule, 
well attended. The old committee on law and legislation was enlarged, 
a committee on Forestal Experiment Stations appointed, arrangements 
for a general meeting in Columbus were instituted, and preparation for 
the celebration of Arbor Day in 1884 begun. 

Early in 1884, the Committee on Law and Legislation, consisting of 
Hon. E. Rothe, Judge Warren Higley, Hon. Leopold Burkhard, General 
Durbin Ward, Dr. A. D. Binkert and Adolph Leue, drafted a Forestry 
bill, entitled, "A bill to encourage forest culture, the planting of 
shade trees on public highways, in parks, and other public places, and 
for the observance of Arbor day". The bill was forward d to Senator 
Pruden, and by him introduced into the Senate. 

The other Forestry Bill, entitled, "A bill to establish forestal experi 
ment stations and lo provide for instruction in forestry in the Ohio 
State University at Columbus", was drafted by the Secretary, Adolph 
Leue, and introduced into the House by Dr. Oscar F. Edwards. 

Unfortunately, neither of the above bills passed. 

MEETING IN COLUMBUS, MARCH 28, I8S4. 

Owing to the energy of Prof. Lazenby and the Franklin County 
Horticultural Society, the Columbus Board of Trade tendered to the Asso- 
ciation the free use of its spacious hall during the session in that city. 
Vice-President Horace Wilson called the meeting to order at 2 P. M., 
and in his address of welcome made some very excellent remarks as to 
the necessity of attention to forestry ; eulogized the A8.*ociation for its 
untiring zeal in pushing the good work, and expressed the hope that 
through and by means of the sessions of this society, the peoj)le in Co- 
lumbus and vicinity would catch some of that enthusiasm which so ad- 
vantageously distinguishes the Cincinnati members. 

The President, Judge Warren Higley, of Cincinnati, in his response 
on behalf of the association, congratulated the local committee upon 
their success in securing this spacious hall, which, in view of the im- 
portant object of the Association and thus of the present meeting he 
thought ought to be filled. But, he c^ntiuued, we ^eed not be discour- 



OHIO FOKESTRY ASSOCIATION. 9 

aged; this hall is but the place wh^-nce we speak to thousands of atten- 
ti ve listeners. The thoughts, the ideas expressed here, will be carried 
by the press to people near and far, not only in this country but even in 
other States. He then proceeded to re id his paper on 

THE IMPORTANCE OF FORESTS, 

Which appears elsewhere in this report. A lively discussion followed, 
in which Prof. Lazenby, Emil Rothe, Leo. Weltz, Adolph Leue, and others 
participated. 

Prof. Lazenby followed with some remarks from notes prepared for 
the occasion, giving the results of a series of daily observations of tem- 
perature taken by himself through a period of six weeks in open fields 
and the centers of forests. A study of the records shows that' the tem- 
perature of the forests averaged 4° higher than that of the field". The 
fluctuations and changes in temperature were less extreme and much 
less rapid in the woods than in the fields, and certain change?- in the 
open country did not affect the woodlands until some (ime after. The 
observations were begun about the middle of January. February 12, 
an observation at 7:30 A. M. showed 7° F. in the woods and 18° F. in 
the open field, the latter point about lO rods di^tant from the former. 
At 12:30 P. M., the same day, the thermometer marked 12° F. in the 
woods and 22° in the field — a fluctuation in the open field of 40° and of 
only 2^)° in the woodland. 

At the close of these remarks, an interesting intellectual cross-fire, 
between Professor Lazenby, and Leo. Weltz, of Wilmington, ensued. 

Prof. Edward Orton read a paper on " Hints from Nature on Forest 
Culture," prepared by M. C. Read, of Hudson, 0., which appears in full 
in this report. The papec was discussed at some length, without either 
weakening or strengthening the assertions made in the same. 

As it was not contemplated to hear any more papers during the 
afternoon session. Secretary Leue offered the following addition to the 
By-Laws, which was adopted : 

"Non-residents of the Slate of Ohio may, at any general meeting, be elected 
corresponting members of the Association. Such members shall be exempted from 
all fees and dues, and shall enjoy all the privileges of regular active members, ex- 
cept the right of voting and of holding office in the Association." 

The following-named gentlemen were then elected corresponding 
members : 

Prof. N. H. Egleston, Washington, D. 0. 
Dr. George B. Loring, Washington, D. C. 



10 REPORT OF THE 

Hon, H. J. Joly, Onebeck, Canada. 

Dr. F. Judeich, Tharand, Saxony, Germany. 

Oberforster Candidal Max Muller, Dresden, Saxony. 

Ex-Governor Horatio Seymour, Utica, N. Y. 

Hon. Caasius M. Clay, White Hall, Ky. 

I. H. Morgan, Amherstburg, Ont. 

Ex Governor Robert Furnas, Nebraska. 

William Little, Montreal, Canada. 

E. Steward Thane, Ottawa, Ont. 
Prof. William Saunders, London, Ont. 
Baron Eich v. Steuben, Germany. 
Prof. J. L. Budd, of Ames, Iowa. 

F. P. Baker, Topeka, Kansas. 

Dr. Franklin B. Hough, Lowville, N. Y. 
Prof. G. B. Northrop, Clinton, Ct. 
Prof. Robert B. Warder, Lafayette, Ind. 
Bernard E. Fernow, New York, N. Y. 

Hon. Horace Wilson spoke-then at some length, upon the general 
need of knowledge in all the branches of forestry, citing examples which 
had come under his personal observation, especially as to the selection 
of proper trees for a given soil and a proper soil for given trees. 

Hon. Emil Rothe, in making some remarks as to tree-planting on 
the roadside, asserted that it was ridiculous to say, "that bad roads are 
caused by trees on its sides," the fact being that bad roads are to be at- 
tributed to the laziness of the people. 

At this point the meeting was adjourned to 7:30 P. M. 



EVENING SEtSION. 

Promptly at 7:30 Judge Higley took the Chair and Adolph Leue 
the Secretary's desk. 

Sup't John B. Peaslee, of Cincinnati, read a paper on " The Cele- 
bration of Arbor Day," which will be printed in full in another part of 
this report. 

Hon. Emil Rothe, of Cincinnati, read a paper on " Profits in Tree- 
planting." which appears in full. 

Prof. Wm. R. Laztnby made a few remarks on some specimens of 
Catalpa and Black locusts, which had been grown on the experimental 
farm of the University, and were brought to the meeting. 

Adolph Leue, of Cincinnati, read a paper on '' Forestal Experiment 
Stations," which appears in full, with a few additional notes, in the 
latter part of this report. 



OHIO FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 11 

For want of tiiue it was moved and carried to dispense with the 
reading of papers, when the following were read by title only : 

1. " Notes on Tree Planting." By R. E. Fernow, New York. 

2. " How Our Forests are Destroyed." By Albert Wetterstroem, of Cincin- 
nati, Ohio. 

3. " Tree Culture on Piairies." By Isaac Smucker, of Newark, Ohio. 

4. " The Physiological Life of a Tree." By W. P. Bentley, of Wilmington, Ohio. 

Prof. Edward Orton rose to ask what provisions had been made for 
publishing the papers presented at this meeting. The suggestion to 
have them embodied in the Agricultural Reports was counted by him 
unwise. Provision could be made for bringing them out in a separate 
edition, so that they might attract the attention they deserve. To se- 
cure their publication, the speaker further said that, he would gladly 
bear his share of the expenses. 

Upon motion that a committee be appoint(d to devise ways and 
means of publishing these papers, the following committee was ap- 
pointed by the Chair: Prof. Edward Orton, Prof. W. R. Lazenb}'^, Hon. 
Leo. Weltz, John H. McMakin, Adolph Leue. 

Mr. Fleming suggested that application be made to the State to 
publish the papers in the Horticultural Report, saying that about 5,000 
copies could be struck oflF separately for the use of the Association. 

It was then moved and carried that Mr. Fleming be appointed a 
committee of one to make .^uch application to the Legislature. 

After a few appropriate remarks by the President, thanking all 
who had been instrumental in making the meeting a decided success, 
the Association adjourned, subject to the call of the President. 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 



FORESTS AND FORESTRY. 
By Hon. Warrkn Higley, Cincinnati, President of the Ohio Slate Forestry AKgociation. 

It may seem to you quite out of place for a lawyer to leave his oflBce and take the 
platform to address the Arboriculturists of Ohio on a subject so nearly allied to their 
interests and so familiar by daily contact and observation. The reason I offer lor 
this apparent presumption, is the fact that I was a farmer-boy, and had in youth the 
sturdy training which came from familiarity with the ax and the plow, the scythe, 



12 REPORT OF THE 

the cradle, and the hoe, when the farmer was accustomed to take up his daily task 
at sunrise and continue until sunset, excepting the time necessary for his meals 
The ten-hour system was not then recognized by the farmer, nor were mowers, and 
reapers and binders, and wheel-rakes, and wheel-cultivators in general use in those 
days, and some of them hardly dreamed of. 

In those early years, the familiar contact with nature in her various forms made 
lasting impressions of her laws relating to vegetable growth — the necessity for plant- 
ing on soil adapted to the proposed crop, and of alternating with pasture and corn 
with barley and wheat and clover. Nor did the growth of trees — fruit and forest 
trees — fail to be a study and a delight. The waving forests taught their lessons of 
beauty and of grandeur. The name of every tree that grew in the vicinity was 
familiar, and its comparative value for fire-wood or for lumber was known. 

Central New York. 

In those days, in central New York, much of the country was heavily wooded 
with forests primeval, and 1 remember when good body maple, and red and white 
beech sold in the city, three miles away, at from $1.50 to $3.00 per cord. The forests 
were rapidly felled, and the peach crop, which had never been known to fail, became 
uncertain, and soon after unlooked for. The winter's frosts i)roved too severe. The 
apricot and its luscious fruit was frozen out. The springs came later and later. The 
young cattle, once accustomed to be turned out into the wood-sheltered pastures on 
the first of April, were kept in the yard on dry food until the first or tenth of May. 
The saw-mills and grist-mills on the running streams were ut-ed less and less, until 
they were either removed, or left to decay with the dam that gave head to the 
waters. In summer, the ponds were dry. In spring, the Ktreams were swollen and 
angry, the bridges carried away, and the hill-sides furrowed d^ep with the swift 
running waters. 

Popular Agitation in Ohio. 

These experiences and observations while young, and studies in later life, have 
imprepsed me with the great importance of the subject of Forestry, and of the neces- 
sity of introducing the principles and practices of its science into this country. To 
secure this, a great popular movement was inaugurated at Cincinnati, in the winter 
of 1882, which resulted in the organization of The American Forestry Congress, and 
what is still better, or rather the most important adjunct, the wide dissemination of 
important information on this subject through the public press of the country. I 
am proud to have been connected with this movement from the very beginning. 

Political Economy and Forestry. 

In the comprehensive study of Political Economy, though much is said of 
manufactures, of overproduction and tarifi" and trade, and little of the original 
causes of the under or overproduction of crops from the soil, the thoughtful farmer 
must nevertheless apply its principles to the basis of all prosperity in a country like 
ours — to the productions of the soil, and hence to the climate and health of the 
country— and this will necessarily impose the careful consideration of our forests 
past and present, and their influence upon the permanent prosperity of the -whole 



OHIO FOEESTEY ASSOCIATION. 13 

country. The student of history must conclude that, however faithfully the laws of 
Political Economy may be observed in manufactures and trade, foreign and domes- 
tic, they will fail to secure the permanent prosperity of this great nation, unless the 
subject of Forestry shall find its true place in the discussions of the learned, and the 
people be led to observe and practice the principles of its science. My former expe- 
riences and observations and my studies in later life have caused the interest I feel 
in this subject, and given what little knowledge and authority I have to speak 
upon it. 

The subject is indeed vast in its importance to America, and touches the very 
springs of the nation's life. It demands the thoughtful and early attention of the 
philosopher and the statesman. 

Forests in the United States. 

Originally the eastern, middle and southern states were almost entirely wooded, 
excepting a large portion of Texas and eastern and southern Indiana, while west of 
the line of prairie running south-west through Indiana, Illinois and Missouri to the 
Indian territory, the country was mostly destitute of wood south of the lake region. 

The forests in these wooded districts were cleared to make farms for the early 
settlers, and of necessity ; but the destruction has gone on since the necessity ceased, 
until the scarcity of valuable timber has become painfully apparent, and the broad 
farm districts stripped of their forests, are laid under contribution to supply the 
necessities for fuel, fences and buildings, from coal and timber imported from 
other places for the purpose. The rate of destruction, through the increasing 
demands for consumption, is rapidly going on, while the planting and re-foresting 
to take the place of the threatened dearth have hardly begun. 

Let us now see how these forest supplies stand, and how the future promises, 
with regard to their continuance in the United States. We have as our only data 
the census of difi"erent periods; and the returns of 1880 show that, of our States and 
Territories, 9 had reduced their woodlands to below 10 per cent.; 5, to between 10 
and 20 per cent.; 8, to from 20 to 30 per cent. ; 11, to from 30 to 40 per cent.; and 4, 
to from 40 to 50 per cent., when this census was taken. In 10 States of the Soutli 
and South-west the proportion was 50 per cent, or more, and in the whole United 
States the woodlands occupied 35 per cent, of the reported area. 

I know of no facts more convincing as to the necessity for attention to forestry 
in this country than those found in our last census report, from which I take the fol- 
lowing figures : 

Partial Estimate of the Consumption of Forest Products as Fuel in the 
United States during the Census Year ending May 31, 1880. 

Number of persons using wood for domestic fuel 32,375,074 



14 



REPORT OF THE 

Estimated Consumption of Fuel for Dom^tic Purposes, 



For home use 

By railroads 

By steamboats 

In mining and amalgamating the precious metals, 

In other mining operations 

In the manufacture of brick and tile 

In the manufacture of salt 

In the manufacture of wool 

Total : 



Number of 
cords. 


Value. 


140,537,439 


$306,9.50,040 


1,971,813 


5,126,714 


787,862 


1,812,083 


358,074 


2,874,593 


266,771 


673,692 


1,157,522 


3,978,331 


540,448 


121,681 


158,208 


425,239 


145,778,137 


$321,962,373 



Consumption of Charcoal. 



In the twenly largest cities 

In manufacture of iron 

In the production of precious metals 

Total 



Bushels. 



4,319,194 

69,592,091 

97,687 



74,008,972 



Value. 



$.521,316 

4,726,114 

29,306 



$5,276,736 



In this table Ohio is estimated to consume for domestic purposes, exclusive of 
what is used in manufactures, 8,191,543 cords of wood, with an estimated value of 
$16,492,574. Allowing an average yield of forty cords to the acre, it requires 204,788 
acres of forest to supply the demand in this State one year for fuel alone. 



The Lumbering Industry of the United States for the Year ending May 

31, 1880. 

Capital employed $181,186,122 

Number of hands employed — Males 141,564 

Females 425 

Children and youth 5,967 

Value of logs $139,836,869 

Wages paid during the year 31,845,974 

Feet of lumber (board measure) produced 18,091,356,000 

Number of laths 1,761,788,000 

shingles , 5,5.5.5,046,000 

staves 1,248,226,000 

headings 146,523,000 

Feet of spool and bobl^in stock (board measure) 34,076,000 

Value of all other products $2,682,668 

Total value of all products $233,367,729 



OHIO FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



16 



The lumbering interest of Ohio for the year ending May 31, 1880, is estimated 
as follows : 

Capital invested, $7,944,412; number of hands employed, 15,277; value of logs, 
$8,603,127 ; wages paid during the year, $1,708,300; feet of lumber (board measure), 
910,832,000; number of laths, 50,625,000 ; number of shingles, 24,875,000 ; number of 
staves, 214,245,000 ; number of sets of headings, 25,779,000; value of all the lumber 
products of Ohio (estimated), $13,864,460. This, added to the estimated value of 
wood used for domestic purposes— to-wit, $8,191,543— gives a total value of the pro- 
duct of the State for the census year of 1880, $22,056,003 ; and this consumption is 
rapidly increasing through the demands of our growing population. 

Decrease of Forests in Ohio. 

A comparison with the census returns of 1870 and 1880 shows a decrease of 
woodlands in the belt including latitude 37 degrees to 40 degrees, through which 
runs the Ohio River, extending westward across the Mississippi River, of irom 34 to 
26 per cent., being greatest in Ohio and Indiana. 

Dr. Franklin B. Hough, formerly chief of the Forestry Department at Washington, 
D. C, in a recent article published in the Albany Evening Journal, says: 

"In Ohio the returns made by assessors (which appear to be very reliable) show 
the tendencies of clearing the forests in a very strong light, and taking three periods 
for comparison we get the following results : 

Decrease Percentage 

Acres of from former of woodland to 

woodland. period. total area. 

1853 13,991,228 55.27 

l'870 9,749,333 4,241,895 38.51 

1881 4,708,247 5,041,086 22.71 

"In 1881, 601,136 acres, or about 3 per cent, (not included in the woodlands), 
were lying waste. 

"The amount of clearing, from 1870 to 1881, is shown to have been 5,041,083 acres, 
and at this rate it becomes an easy question to solve as to how long the remaining 
4,708,247 acres will last. We have not figures to prove that these rates of clearing 
have been going on in the other states bordering upon the Ohio river, or supplying 
it by their drainage ; but the connection between this denudation and the floods of 
the present and of recent years can not be mistaken. Last year the damages were 
estimated at $60,000,000. There may have been less damage done this year (although 
the flood was five feet higher), because there was less property to destroy. In a letter 
from a friend in Marietta we are told that 400 houses floated past that place in the 
recent flood, which probably took ofi"many that were not reached by the waters be- 
fore. 

"Nine years ago a million of dollars or more of property was destroyed at Roch- 
ester by a flood unquestionably occasioned primarily by the extensive clearings in 
recent years around the head waters of the Genesee river. The heavy rains and 
warm winds, which rapidly melted the snows and supplied the floods on that occa- 
sion, could not have had so immediate an efi"ect in a wooded country. 

"Passing from Winter floods, we flnd the other extreme in Summer droughts 



16 REPORT OF THE 

which in recent years have become more trequent and distressing than were known 
in former years, and both may be traced unerringly to the same cause — the clearing- 
oflf of the woodlands which formerly tended to equalize these extremes and maintain 
a more uniform flow of waters throughout the year." 

Rail Road Ties. 

At the meeting of the Forestry Congress in Cincinnati, April, 1882, Dr. Franklin 
B. Hough, then chief of the Forestry Department, read a valuable paper on "Tree 
Planting by Railroad Companies," in which he says : 

"We have in the United States about 100,000 miles of railroads. The number of 
ties to a mile range from 2,200 to 3,000, and in some cases as high as 3,500. It we as- 
sume an average of 2,500 to the mile, we have 250,000,000 in use. They 
average eight feet in length, and about seven inches deep and eight inches wide, 
giving the contents of almost three cubic feet apiece, or in all 6,000,000 of cords. If 
piled cord-fashion, they would form a pile four feet high, eight feet wide, and 4,575 
miles long. Placed end to end, they would span the earth lifteen times at the equa- 
tor, or in one line would reach miles beyond the moon. Taking the average life of 
a tie at from five to eight years, and we shall need from 30,000,000 to 50,000,000 new 
ties a year for maintaining the present railroads of the country in constaat use. 
Allowing 500 ties to the acre, we shall need to cut from 60,000 to 100,000 acres every 
year to meet this demand. To grow trees to the size necessary for ties will require 
an average of about thiity years, and we shall need, to keep up this supply, nearly 
3,000,000 acres of forests, or about 2,500 acres for every hundred miles ^f road. This 
is equivalent to a belt of woodland twelve and one-half rods wide alon^; the road, or 
about three times the right of way." 

The Influence op Forests upon Climate and Productions. 

Forests are not only valuable for their products, but their eflfect upon the climate 
and productions of the country is also of the greatest importance, as numerous ex- 
amples in history, and accurate scientific experiments att ist. 

Dr. Ernst Ebermayer, Professor of the Central Forest Academy at Ashaffenburg. 
in Bavaria, has written a work of great interest on the subject of Forestry, from 
which I take the following facts : 

For five years observations have been made in the Kingdom of Bavaria, at seven 
difi'erent points, respecting the influence of forests on the temperature and moisture 
of the atmosphere, on the evaporation of water, and on the quantity of rainfall, etc. 
The facts are based on 5,000 difiFerent observations, made during the years 1868 to 
1872, with the help of instruments most ingeniously constructed for that purpose. 
With these, twice every day, at fixed hours and at all seven points, the temperature 
of the soil was measured for comparison in the forests as well as in the open fields, 
at the surface and at a depth respectively of gne-half, one, two, ihree, and four feet. 
According to these, the mean annual temperature of the fwe^ mil is, on an average, 
21 per cent, lower than that in the open field, and the meaa annual temperature of 
the atmosphere in the forest, is on an average 10 per cent, lower than that in the open 
field. 



OHIO FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 17 

They show also the equalizing efifect of forests in lowering the extreme summer's 
heat, and in lessening the extreme winter's cold. 

The relative moisture is an average of 6 per cent, greater in the forest than in 
the open field — 9 per cent, in summer and about 5 per cent, in the other seasons. 

The principal distributer of warmth over the whole globe is the moisture of the 
atmosphere, without which it would be excessively hot in some countries and 
freezing in others. 

Dr. Felix I>. Oswald, in an article published in the April number of the North 
American Review, on "Changes in the Climate of North America," says: "The 
calorific influence of the Gulf Stream is generally overrated. When both Europe 
and North America were covered with continuous forests, the east shores of the 
Atlantic had the advantage of milder winters, but their summers were neither 
warmer nor dryer than ours. On the contrary, the seven seagirt peninsulas of 
Europe enjoyed the benefits of a maritime climate; droughts were so rare that their 
occasional occurrence was considered a portent ; deserts, in the present sense of the 
word, were confined to Araby and central Africa. Northern Africa not onlj' pro- 
duced food enough for her own teeming population, but was the granary of the 
Orbis Romanus, an inexhaustible store-house of oil, wine, and wheat. Where now 
the oven-breath of the Harmattan sears the naked hills of Tunis, orchards, alternating 
with shady forests, once covered an extent of country which, in spite of frequent 
hunting expeditions, was to its Roman conqueror.^ still a sylvan terra incognita, and in 
no sense an undesirable country, judging from the subsequent fierce contests for its 
possession. In eastern Algiers, the ancient Cyrenaica, De Baudin recorded 128° in 
the shade for eighteen successive days. The climate of the whole country must 
have become thirty degrees warmer ; that of southern and central Enrope at least 
twenty degrees. In the time of Xenophon, Greece had harder winters than modern 
Dalmatia ; on the expedition against Corcyra, Socrates marched barefoot through 
the deep snow to silence the eff'eminate complaints of his young companions. 
Cyrus the Great used to pass seven months of every year at Babylon in the Euphrates 
valley, a 'region of perpetual spring,' as his biographer calls it, in the same valley 
where the dog-star now seems to rage perennially. Several poets mention the 
'snowy summit of Mount Soracte,' a south Italian mountain of very moderate eleva- 
tion. Tacitus speaks of frozen lakes in northern Italy, and his description of the 
German woodlands, 'horrid with frost,' would have answered the present state of 
affairs in northern Canada. Asia Minor has become the epitome of a dying conti- 
nent. In Spain the agricultural value of the lowlands, which once attracted the 
Visigoths from their Danubiau homes, has been re.luced by more than eighty per 
cent. From Suez to Gibraltar the coast lands of the Meiliterranean have wasted 
away in a decline, which seems to be the ultimate fate of all civilized countries. The 
burning drift-sand of the desert is perhaps the Wad-el-Har of the Koran, the fire-sea 
which is destined to engulf all things at the end of time. Planets die by dessication." 

Effect of Forests on Springs. 

Mr. Marsh, in his treatise on "The Earth as modified by human action," says: — 
"It is an almost universal, and, I believe, well-founded opinion, that the protection 
afi'orded by the forests against the escape of moisture from its soil by superficial 
2 



18 REPORT OF THE 

flow and evaporation, insure the permanence and regularity of natural springs, not 
only within the limits of the woods, but at some distance beyond its borders, and 
thus contributes to the supply of an element essential to both animal and vegetable 
life. As the forests are destroyed, the springs which flowed from the woods, and 
consequently the greater water-courses fed by them, diminish both in number and 
volume. •' * * The hills in the Atlantic States formerly abounded in springs and 
brooks, but in many parts of these States, which were cleared a generation or two 
ago, the hill-pastures now suff'er severely from drouth, and in dry seasons furnish to 
cattle neither grass nor water." 

Roots of Trees as Conductors. 

Besquerel, the eminent French philosopher, illustrating the mechanical action 
of roots as conductors of the superflous humidity of the superficial earth to lower 
strata, says : " The roots of trees ofteu penetrate through sub-soil most impervious 
to water, and in such cases the moisture, which would otherwise remain above the 
sub-soil, and convert the surface earth into a bog, follows the root downwards, and 
escapes into more porous strata, or is received by subterraneous canals or reservoirs. 
AVhen the forest is felled the roots perish and decaj*^, the orifices opened by them are 
soon obstructed, j>nd the water, after having saturated the vegetable earth, stagnates 
on the surface and transforms it into ponds and morasses. Thus, in La Brenne, a 
tract of 200,000 acres, resting on an impermeable sub-soil of argillaceous earth, 
which ten centuries ago was covered with forests, interspersed with fertile and salu- 
brious meadows, has been converted, by the destruction of the woods, into a vast 
expanse of pestilential pools and marshes. In Cologne, the same cause has with, 
drawn from cultivation and human habitation not less than 1,000,000 acres of ground, 
once well-wooded, well-drained and productive. 

Dr. Schadt, Professor at the University at Bonn, says, in his well-known work 
" Les Arbres ": 

" The sanitary condition of man and of domestic animals, as well as the growth 
of cultivated plants, immediately depends on the climate of the locality. Epidemics, 
unknown before, may, perhaps, be attributed to a climatic change, brought about by 
the destruction of forests. 

Forests and Rainfall. 

" The fertility of a country depends on its supply of forest land." 
M. Blanqui, in his travels in Bulgaria, mentions that at Malta the rains have be- 
come so seldom since the trees have been cut away to make room for cotton, that at 
the time of his visit, in 1841, not a drop of rain had fallen during three years. 

The fearful dryness which has desolated the Cape Verde Islands, may be, in like 
manner, attributed to the cutting off of forests. On the Island of St. Helena, where 
the forests have been largely increased within the last few years, the amount of 
rain has increased proportionately, and is now double that which fell annually at 
the time of Napoleon's sojourn there. In Egypt, the recent plantations have 
brought rains where they were almost unknown before. 



OHIO FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 19 

Food Trees. 

Dr. Oswald, from whose article in the North American Review I have already 
quoted, says : 

" The starving farmer of the Old World takes refuge in emigration ; but when 
the exhaustion of the West American and Australian soil shall leave us no New 
World to fall back upon, when all the arable land from Maine to California shall 
produce its utmost, and yet insufficient crops, the significance of the hie aut nusquam 
will be brought home to the nonplussed cultivator, and necessity will enforce the 
earth-transforming rule that in an over-populated land of limited agricultural re- 
sources herbs and cereals must give way to arboreal plants. An acre of ground 
planted with bananas will feed as many persons as thirty acres of the best potatoes 
or twenty-five acres of wheat. In many parts of southern Europe the chestnut is 
the bread-plant. Of a most prolific variety which is cultivated in the highlands of 
the Apennines, and would thrive as far north as Connecticut, a single tree often 
produces several thousand sweet and mealy half-ounce nuts, which the Italians 
grind like corn, and use for various palatable farinaceous preparations, in nutritive 
value far superior to the potato and rye-bread diet of their northern neighbors. 
Xenophon mentions the ' chestnut- fed children of the Bythynian mountaineers — 
' boys as broad as they were long.' Olive-trees live six centuries, and after the 
tenth year an olive-garden produces fourteen times as much oil as the aame area of 
any annual plant. The same holds good of the northern beech and the arborescent 
hazelnut. The prolific Turkish sugar-plum thrives on soil where neither sugar-cane 
nor sorghum would grow. Baum-uoole, the German word for cotton, means literally 
tree-wool, and several tropical trees, especially the bombacea, could furnish that ma- 
terial in every desired quantity. Bombax-wool is almost as fine and strong as silk, 
and the length of the fiber might be improved by cultivation." 

New York. 

The Adirondack region of New York forms one of the most important water-sheds 
of America. Its thousands of lakes, fed by the slowly melting snows and abundant 
rains of that forest-covered mountainous region, feed with an almost constant supply 
the rivers flowing west and north to Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence, the Mohawk 
and Hudson, whose waters mingle with the Atlantic through the "Narrows" and 
New York Bay, and exercise a most important influence upon the climate and pro- 
ductions of New York. 

The Hon. Verplank Colvin, Superintendent of the New York State Adirondack 
Survey, and Secretary of the Commissioners of State Parks, made a report to the Leg- 
islature of New York in 1873, containing much valuable information on the subject 
of Forestry. Speaking of the influence of the Adirondack forests, he says : 

"We (the Commissioners) believe that the great Adirondack forest has a powerful 
influence upon the general climatology of the State ; upon the rainfall, winds and 
temperature, moderating storms and equalizing throughout the year the amount of 
moisture carried by the atmosphere ; controlling, and in a measure subduing, the 
powerful northerly winds, modifying their coldness and equalizing the temperature 
of the whole State". 

Again, he says : "All floods, however, are not to be attributed to the destruction 



20 REPORT OF THE 

of the forests ; for in this, as in other things, there are exceptions to the rule, never- 
theless, upon the Hudson river, the destruction of the Adirondack forest would have 
a calamitous effect. The deep winter's snows, accumulating upon the disafforested 
uplands, would remain unmelted till the thousand and three hundred square miles 
of the present wilderness water-shed might have a compact covering of snow equiva- 
lent to twelve inches of water. Spring, with its sunshine and showers, would sud- 
denly release this latent ocean ; 36,241,920,000 heavy cubic feet of water might rush 
at once, down through the valleys to the sea. More than a quarter of a massive 
cubic mile of water hurled furiously into the narrow valley of the Hudson, it would 
sweep before it fields of ice, to crush and sink the strongest vessels, and ruin the 
warehouses on the wharves. While the Adirondack forests remain, these deep snows 
will be protected from the direct rays of the sun in Spring, and will slowly and grad- 
ually melt away. The general temperature of the region will consequently be low ; 
the air will not be overcharged with moisture, and sudden, heavy rains will be im- 
probable." 

Santa Cruz. 

The little island of Santa Cruz, one of the West Indies, was noted, thirty-five 
years ago, for the abundance and richness of its tropical productions, the salubrity 
of its climate, and the wealth and prosperity of its inhabitants. It was also a favor- 
ite winter resort for those dwelling at the north, for ten or fifteen years later. But 
the vandalism of its inhabitants finally swept away its forests, and it has become a 
dry, arid, worthless desert,— so that of a thousand trees recently planted upon an 
estate, there has not one survived. Many of the old, wealthy creole families were 
reduced to poverty and the inhabitants to exile. The sad story was told me by one 
who had thus suffered. 

The same is true of the Island of Curacoa, which met the same fate thirty years 
earlier. It had been a garden of fertility, abounding in beautiful villas and terraced 
gardens, all of which became a broad, arid waste, without trees or a blade of grass to 
protect its parched surface from the hot sun and devastating blasts. 

Almost within sight of Curacoa is the coast of Spanish main, covered with the 
rankest vegetation, over which the burdened clouds shower down abundant blessings. 

History op Forestry. 

From a letter addressed to Verplank Colvin, Superintendent of the Adirondack 
Surveys, by S. V. Dorrien, 1879, on the Historical Development of Forestry, etc., I 
gather the following facts : 

Among the oldest forest ordinances, regulating the economy of state and other 
forests, we find one given by the elector Joachim, of Brandenburg, in 1547 ; also, one 
respecting the forests owned by the Count of Mansfield, given in 1585, by the Elector 
August, of Saxony, by virtue of his right of sovereignty. The earliest French forest 
laws date from the 16th century. 

Eeflecting upon the state of forestry in Germany about the year 1700, we may 
assert that everywhere, excepting perhaps the north-eastern portion, the science of 
forest economy was caused and promoted by sheer necessity. 

Game and forest-keepers, with a more than usual knowledge of forest matters 



OHIO FOEESTRY ASSOCIATION. 21 

became the first real foresters. Principally among these we count J. G. von Langen, 
a native of Brunswick, who, in the year 1740, introduced the first systematic working 
plan in the Harz mountains. About the same time we find in Prussia the transition 
from the irregular "planter gystem'^ to systematic management of the forests. 

Frederick the Great, of Prussia, soon after his ascension to the throne (1740), 
made it a law to divide the forests into equal sections, and to fell the timber accord- 
ingly. Forest Academies were established in the years 1783, 1785, and 1790, at 
Berlin, Hohenheim, Kiel and Munich, and from this time dates the scientific 
knowledge of forest matters. But its full importance was only recognized at a much 
later period, when it was deemed advisable to consider the laws of nature and to 
apply the rules of general economy to the administration of forests. 

The advanced state of the science of forestry in Europe is best illustrated by the 
fact that there are at present nineteen high schools or academies of forestry, with a 
full corps of distinguished professors, and an extensive and well-rounded course 
of study. 

Prussia. 

Prussia has 20,000,000 acres of forests, 10,000,000 of which are private, and the 
remainder state, commercial and ecclesiastical. The income to the State from these 
forests is 114,000,000, the expenses $7,500,000, leaving a net profit of $6,500,000 
annually. 

Saxony. 

The State forests of Saxony are nearly 400,000 acres, worked at an expense of 
$500,000, yielding an income of $1,750,000, and a net profit of $1,250,000 a year. 

Bavaria. 

The State forests of Bavaria are 3,000,000 acres. They return, after paying all 
expenses, about $1.50 per acre per annum. About 30,000 acres are sown or planted 
annually, taking 35,000,000 plants and 1,000,000 lbs. of seed. 

The greater portion of the forests of Europe are directly under governmental 
direction and management, and owned by the government. The control, therefore, 
is absolute, and the management systematic and progressive. 

Profits from Tree-Planting. 

In the very valuable report of K. W. Phipps, Esq., of Toronto, on the necessity 
of preserving and replanting forests, made a*^ the instance of the Government of 
Ontario, I take the following figures, which, however, were compiled by him from an 
extensive report made on the subject by Capt. Walker, under the direction of the 
European Government. 

Hanover. 

The forests of Hanover, under State management, amount to 900,000 acres, of 
which the Government forests are about 600,000 acres ; and the cost of working 
these and all expenses connected therewith are about $650,000 annually, the receipts 
being $1,500,000, and the profits, therefore, $850,000, or about $1.50 per acre per 
annum. 



22 REPORT OF THE 

Area of Forests in Europe. 

The Hon. Franklin B. Hough, who is perhaps the most authoritative writer on 
forestry in America, says: 

" Assuming (what I think no one will deny) that wood, in an infinite number of 
ways, is absolutely needed for man's use, and that civilization could scarcely exist 
without it, let us see how the supply stands : In Russia and Finland the wooded 
area was some years since estimated at 40 per cent., mostly in the interior and 
northern part ; and in the former, the greater portion upon the waters that drain 
into the Arctic ocean. In Sweden and Norway, it was 34.1 per cent. ; in Australia, 
29.4; in Germany, 25.1; in Turkey and Roumania, 22.2; in Italy, 22; in Switzer- 
land, 18 ; in France, 17.3 ; in Greece, 14.3 ; in Spain, 7.3 ; in Holland and Belgium, .7 ; 
in Portgugal, 5.1 ; in Great Britain, 4.1, and in Denmark, 3.7 per cent, of their whole 
areas. 

" In .".11 of the countries where the percentage is small, their supplies of timber 
are imported chiefly from the Baltic ports, and from Canada and the United States. 
How long the forest products of Northern Europe will meet the demand, is becom- 
ing a matter of anxious inquiry, not only in the countries that supply, but also in those 
that receive them, and even in Norway and Sweden they are anxiously asking one 
another, ' what shall we do next ? ' Great Britain, which has been almost wholly 
supplied by commerce with the timber needed for its use, is making diligent efforts 
to establish systems of forest management in India and Australia, and at the present 
time active preparations are being made for an international forestry exhibition at 
Edinburgh, with the design of awakening an interest in this subject. 

Every other country in Europe has a system of forest management, and those 
of Germany and France in particular, are well devised and admirably well managed. 
The care of woodlands requires special qualifications in the agents having charge, 
and to secure this, special schools have been established by the governments, not 
unlike those of our Government at West Point and at Annapolis, for preparing 
young men for our army and navy. They have every appliance that can be used 
for instruction, and their students have much practical experience in the duties 
they are to perform." 

CONCLUSION. 

I have thus endeavored to show, by undoubted authorities, the great rapidity 
with which our forests are disappearing, the vast demand upon them for domestic 
and manufacturing purposes, the near approach of the time when our home supply 
will fail, and the immediate necessity of instituting means for the protection and re- 
planting of the forests in America. Their beneficent influence upon the climate 
and healthfulness of the country, upon agriculture, and upon the general prosperity 
of the people, I have shown, I think, by unquestionable evidence. With these 
facts before us, our duty is plain. We must agitate these facts until they are under- 
stood and appreciated — until the representatives of the people of the great State of 
Ohio shall give us wise laws on the subject of forestry, and thereby aid in redeem- 
ing the waste places, and rendering them once more productive in valuable wood 
and timber, until the farmers and fruit-growers shall understand that a larger pro- 
portion of woodland than they now have in this State will greatly enhance their 

productions and enable them to calculate more surely upon the annual crop, unti 

1 



OHIO FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 23 

the beauty of trees in the landscape shall enhance the pleasures of life and min- 
ister to the higher aesthetic nature of the people. 

Love for trees is a beautiful sentiment to instill in the hearts of the young, and 
it is the sure stepping-stone to that knowledge and appreciation of the beauty and 
usefulness of trees and forests that will lead them to plant, to protect and to nur- 
ture trees — " God's first temples." 



HINTS FROM NATURE ON FOREST CULTURE. 

A Paper by M. C. Read, 

Hudson, Ohio. 

The successful culture of forests requires a careful study of the mode of growth 
of each tree, the character of the soil best fitted for its growth, and of all the con- 
ditions tending to secure the best and most permanent results. Nature is her own 
best teacher, and the more carefully we follow her teachings the better will be our 
success. Departure from them in any important matter will tend to failure. 

If the acres in Ohio, reported as covered with forests, were real forests, and 
could be preserved, they would probably suffice for the best agricultural results in 
the State. The preservation of these forests is now of first importance, and all in- 
fluences which threaten their destruction should be carefully studied. 

Instances are not wanting where efi'orts to make these forests more valuable are 
hastening their destruction. Some years ago the large elms which abounded in 
many of these forests were considered of no value for wood or timber, and were cut 
down and burned for the potash they would yield. The suggestion thus oflfered, of 
the supposed advantage of cutting out the valueless trees, was in some instances fol- 
lowed, by cutting out all the shrubs and poorer varieties of trees, for the purpose of 
favoring the growth of the more valuable ones. The result was, that the forests were 
opened up to the influence of the surface winds which swept the fallen leaves into 
the ravines i^nd bottoms, the native grasses steadily encroached upon the forest, pre- 
venting the growth of seedling trees, forming a thick carpet of turf, almost impervious 
to water, while the destruction of the mosses and the removal of the leaves permitted 
the ground to become deeply frozen in winter, so that the influence of the forest in 
absorbing and retaining the rainfall was greatly impaired. The trees upon the 
margin gradually died out, or were overturned by the winds, until the early and 
complete destruction of the forest became apparent. The axe was then employed to 
finish the work, the sickly residue of the forest was destroyed, and the land devoted 
to pasturage or the plow. 

A natural forest has a thick undergrowth of shrubs, mosses, and herbaceous 
plants, which hold the fallen leaves in place, favor the absorption of moisture, keep 
the ground from freezing, prevent the access of winds, and secure that constant 
humid condition favorable to forest growth. The preservation of our forests requires 
that all these conditions be preserved as perfectly as possible, and the untoward in- 
guences of the adjacent deforested lands be in some way counteracted. Left to the 



24 REPORT OF THE 

influences of natural agencies, mos^of our small patches of forest will die out on the 
margins; the grass will intrude upon them, preventing the growth of seedlings; the 
wind will drive the leaves toward the interior, tear down the large trees, and slowly 
eat away the whole forest. Here is a fitting place for that useless hedge plant, the 
yellow willow. It will grow readily under the shade of other trees, and planted as a 
fence around these patches of forests, it will make a complete wind-break, and 
counteract the effect of the deforesting of the adjacent land. Such protection, and 
the complete exclusion of domestic animals, will save these forests from destruction. 
It is doubtful whether they can be saved in any other manner. Where seedlings of 
the desired varieties do not spring up in sufficient numbers, seeds should be planted 
so as to keep the surface well stocked. 

This work of the preservation and perpetuation of what we now have is so im- 
portant in this State, as to justly claim our chief attention. On the few farms where 
the timbered lands are too small, they should, if possible, be made the nucleus of 
the new forest, and the hedge or wind-break of willows be so located as to include 
within its boundaries the whole of the area devoted to forest trees. 

In the new planting, an effort should be made to secure as quickly as possible 
the conditions under which nature secures a healthy forest growth. This can be 
largely secured by the thick phintiag of a large variety of trees. Thick planting will 
soon secure the requisite shading of the ground, and will resist the action of the 
winds. If a pla'btation is made of one species only, the insect enemies of that tree 
will probably be so increased by this artificial increase of their appropriate food as to 
make them formidable enemies, which will not ordinarily be the case with a mixed 
plantation. In the latter case, as some will be surface, and others deep feeders, a 
thicker growth can he maintained without injurious interference. 

The natural adaptation of particular trees to particular soils is so obvious, that 
no time need be taken up in the discussion of the necessity of recognizing this 
adaptation. No one, for instance, would plant elms on sandy ridges or rocky hills, 
or the chestnut on flat, clay land. 

But there is an error, into which our nurserymen have been driven by the de- 
mands of their customers, which should be carefully avoided. Most men, in plant- 
ing orchards, demand trees of large size, and to meet this demand, and at the same 
time furnish trees that will easily bear transplanting, they have resorted to severe 
rcot-pruning and frequent transplanting to force a mass of fibrous roots. Most of 
our fruit trees are naturally deep feeders, pushing their roots far down into the sub- 
soil for moisture and mineral food. A seedling apple tree of one year's growth has 
a long tap-root, generally larger and longer than the growth above ground. If left 
to grow undisturbed, until of such a size as the truit-grower demands, it could be 
transplanted only with great diflBculty, and with such a mutilation of its roots as 
would hazard its life. The nurs-eryman, therefore, plucks it up after one summer's 
growth, cuts this tap-root into several sections, making each a stock for a graft ; these 
planted in rich, mellow soil, throw out a mass of fibrous roots, and soon become 
what are called strictly first-class plants. But they are essentially unnatural pro- 
ducts, and the weak constitutions and short lives of our fruit trees may be easily 
accounted for by this practice. In so important a matter as determining that some 
trees shall push their roots along the surface of the ground, feeding upon the rich 
humus exposed to atmospheric influence, and forming a broad base of interlocking 



OHIO FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 25 

roots, upon which the tree may stand, while others push their roots directly down- 
ward into the stiff, hard sub-soil, and anchoring themselves there by long tap-roots, 
nature makes no mistakes. It is for a purpose that these long tap-roots push them- 
selves downwards ; and that purpose is the health and vigor and long life of the 
tree. We fight against nature when we interfere with this tendency. The destruc- 
tion of the tap-root of a hickory tree is almost as fatal as would be the destruction 
of all of the lateral roots of an ash. Each has its own mode of growth, and cannot 
be grown after the model of the other. 

Most of our nut-bearing trees have this deep-rooted mode of growth. They 
cannot be grown in nurseries until three or four years old, and then transplanted, 
without such a mutilation of their roots as will greatly impair their value. If it is 
not convenient to plant the nuts in the places the trees are to permanently occupy, 
one year is as long as they should remain in the nursery. Each will then have a 
long tap-root and almost no lateral fibrous roots. It can be taken up with ease with- 
out any mutilation, and as easily replanted in the place it is to occupy. It will then 
have a natural growth, will get its food in the way nature intended it should, and, 
if the soil is a congenial one, will maintain a healthy and vigorous growth until it 
attains the stature of a perfect tree after its kind. 

The mode of growth of the seedlings of all the trees we propose to plant should 
be carefully studied, and these deep-feeders never deprived of the instruments or 
members by which they seek their food. All surface feeders may be safely grown in 
nurseries until of good size and subjected to almost any degree of root-pruning, and, 
when planted out, will make a healthy growth. But if those with tap-roots are 
thus treated they will be comparatively worthless. If retained in the nursery, and 
root-pruned until the power of renewing the tap-root is lost, they will none of them 
make healthy, long-lived trees. If so small when transplanted that they are able to 
renew the tap-roots, their growth will be so checked that seedlings of one year's 
growth will, in a few years, surpass them in growth, and become more valuable trees. 



ARBOR DAY CELEBRATIONS/^^ 
An Address by John ITTE'easlee, Ph.D., / 

Superintendent of the Cincinnati Public Schools, 

The time has come when the people of Ohio must wake up to the importance 
of preserving our forests and of planting trees, or our State will suffer the terrible 
consequences of this neglect before another half century has passed away. Hon. 
Emil Rothe, who has given the subject much study, in speaking of Ohio before the 
American Forestry Congress at Cincinnati, in 1882, said : " Let the hills be deprived 
of the rest of the protection which the forests afford, and half the area of our State 
will be sterile in less than fifty years." " The wealth, beauty, fertility, and health- 
fulness of the country," as Whittier justly says, " largely depend upon the conser- 
vation of our forests and the planting of trees." How can these truths be im- 



26 EEPOET OF THE 

pressed most effectively upon the minds of our people? In the first place, 
tree-planting associations, improvement societies, should be organized in every city, 
town, village, and country school district in the State, whose object shall be to plant 
trees along streets, by the road-sides, in parks and commons, around public build- 
ings, in waste places ; to distribute information in regard to trees and forests among 
the people, and to encourage tree-planting in every way possible. These associations, 
or societies, in conjunction with the schools, should hold tree-planting celebrations 
from year to year, but where such associations are not formed, the schools should 
conduct the exercises. The youth of our State must be instructed in the value and 
utility of forests — their influence upon climate, soil, productions, etc. — correct senti- 
ment in regard to trees must be implanted in them if the best interests of the State 
are to be subserved ; and the most impressive and attractive means of imparting 
the instruction, and of interesting the pupils in the subject is through the celebra- 
tion of tree-planting. It is also the surest and best way of calling the attention of 
the people at large to it. It is, therefore, especially desirable that the section of the 
Forestry bill, now before the Legislature, which designates the third Friday in April 
as " Arbor Day," and makes it a general holiday for all public schools that take part 
in the celebration of tree-planting, should become a law. The principal objects of the 
celebration are, to instill into the minds of children and older citizens correct senti- 
ments in regard to trees, and to store their minds with information relating to for- 
estry, and to the distinguished individuals in whose honor or memory each tree, or 
group, is planted, for I would have all the trees around which the celebrations take 
place dedicated to great authors, statesmen, soldiers — in brief, to famous men and 
women, whose lives have reflected honor upon our country ; to the pioneers and 
distinguished citizens of each township, village or city, as the case may be, and thus 
" make trees," as Holmes says, " monuments of history and character." 

In every place where sufficient grounds can be obtained, either in public parks 
or elsewhere, I would have memorial groves planted, and the " Arbor Day Celebra- 
tions" take place in them. Let there be a " Citizens' Memorial Grove," in which 
trees shall be planted from year to year by loving hands of the relatives and friends 
of those who have died ; let there be a " Pioneers' Grove," in which all citizens, 
young and old, shall annually join in paying just tribute to the memory of those 
who endured the hardships and privations of a pioneer life. 

'■ They vanish from us one by one, 

In death's unlighted realm to sleep ; 
And O ! dfgcnerate is the son 

Who would not some memorial keep." 

Let there be an " Authors' Grove," in which the school children shall honor, by 
living monuments, the great men and women in literature, so that while they learn 
to love and reverence trees they will, at the same time, become interested in the 
lives and writings of distinguished and worthy authors. Let there be a " Soldiers' 
Grove," devoted to the memory of our patriotic dead. Yes, 

Plant beautiful trees in honor of those 

Whose memory you revere, 
And more beautiful still they'll become 

With each revolving year. 



OHIO FORESTBY ASSOCIATION. 27 

And what monuments the trees, the monarchs of the vegetable world, become ! 
They are more durable than marble itself.* Their grandeur will challenge the ad- 
miration of the beholder when the coeval marble monument at their base will lie 
in ruins, defaced by age and crumbling into dust. Well may the great historian, 
Benson J. Lossing, ask, " What conqueror in any part of ' life's broad field of battle ' 
could desire a more beautiful, a more noble, a more patriotic monument than a tree, 
planted by pure and joyous children, as a memorial of his achievements ? What 
earnest, honest worker, with hand and brain for the benefit of his fellow-men, could 
desire a more pleasing recognition of his usefulness than such a monument, a 
symbol of his or her own productions, ever growing, ever blooming, and ever bear- 
ing wholesome fruit?" 

Celebration by the Cincinnati Public Schools. 

In order to indicate the character and scope of the Arbor Day celebrations, I will 
here give a brief description of the celebrations held by the public schools of Cincin- 
nati in Eden Park. For a fuller detailed account of the same I refer you to the last 
annual reports of the schools. 

At the request of the projectors of the American Forestry Congress, which was 
organized in Cincinnati in the Spring of 1882, the Ohio Legislature passed a joint reso- 
lution, authorizing the Governor of the State to issue a proclamation each year, in 
which he should designate a day in April as "Arbor Day", and call upon the citizens 
of the State to devote that day to tree-planting. In accordance with the resolution, 
the proclamation was issued, designating the 27th of April of that year as "Arbor 
Day". 

Acting in the spirit of the Governor's proclamation, the Board of Education of 
that city decided by a unanimous vote to dismiss the schools for two days, April 27th 
and 28th, thus giving the teachers and pupils an opportunity of participating in the 
tree-planting on Arbor Day and of attending the remaining exercises of the Congress. 
It occurred to me that it would be an important thing for the schools to plant trees 
in honor and memory of our great American authors, to be known as "Authors' 
Grove". A meeting of the Principals and Special Superintendents was called, at 
which it was decided that each of the schools and of the departments of Music, 
Drawing and Penmanship should select an author in whose honor or memory that 
school or department should plant a group of trees. About six acres were set apart 
in Eden Park, by the Board of Public Works, for "Authors' Grove". Selections on 
trees and forestry from various authors were sent to the several schools to be memo- 
rized by the pupils ; also, information concerning historic trees of our country ; and 
many facts of history giving the effects upon climate, soil, productions, etc., both of 
the destruction and of the renewal of forests were given to the scholars; the?e formed 
the basis of composition in the upper grades. In addition to the above, the teachers 
gave sketches of the lives of their respective authors, and the pupils learned selections 
from their writings. 

*;Note.— The natural age of the oak is from 1,500 to 2,000 years ; of the elm, from 350 to 500 years ; 
of the cypiess, 350 years ; of the larch, 600 years ; of the yew tree, 2,500 to 3,000 years; of the maple, 
from 600 to 800 years; of the cedar. 800 years; of the linden, 1,200 years. There are trees now stand- 
ing that are supposed to he over 5,000 years old. 



28 REPORT OF THE 

In aome of the schools, the boys were organized into companies, under the name 
of Forestry Cadets, ae, the "Emerson Forestry Cadets", of the Hughes High School ; 
the "Longfellow Forestry Cadets," of the Eleventh District School ; the "Holmes 
Forestry Cadets", of the Twenty-second District School. The girls, and the boys not 
organized in companies, were called "Foresters", as the "Whittier Foresters", the 
"Franklin Foresters", and so on. 

That the part taken by the pupils in the actual planting of the trees may not be 
misunderstood, I will state that experienced tree-planters did most of the work of 
setting out the trees previous to Arbor Day, and that the pupils finished the setting 
by filling around each tree soil left in heaps for this purpose. 

On Arbor Day, Authors' Grove was distinguished from the others ("Pioneers' 
Grove", "Battle Grove", "Presidents' Grove", "Citizens' Memorial Grove", for the 
celebration of tree-planting was going on at the same time in each of these groves) 
by a large blue flag placed near the centre of the grove, and by small flags of the same 
color placed around the grove. At a given signal, the pupils, upward of seven thou- 
sand in number (at the celebration last year there were more than seventeen thou- 
sand present), arranged themselves, each school, around its special author's tree or 
group, and the exercises began. In general these exercises consisted of reading by 
the pupils their composition on forestry ; of reciting individually and in concert the 
selections on trees ; of giving sketches of the lives and writings of chosen authors ; 
of declaiming extracts from their works ; of reading letters from living authors or 
from the representatives and friends of those who have passed away ; of singing ; 
of the ceremony of throwing the soil, each pupil in turn, about the tree, and of ap- 
propriate talks by teachers and others. At the expiration of the time allotted to this 
part of t*^ 3 programme, the pupils came together, and, assisted by instrumental music, 
sang our national songs and others appropriate to the occasion. After this the 
pupils were dismissed to enjoy themselves in their own way in the great park. Thus 
ended what, perhaps, were the most interesting and profitable lesson the pupils ever 
had in a single day ; for, in participating in the planting of this grove they have not 
only obtained a better knowledge of American authors and their literature, but have 
learned to care for and protect forest trees. Besides, the importance of Forestry has 
been impressed upon the minds of thousands of children by the celebration, few of 
whom knew before the existence of such a subject. The attention of parents, also, 
was attracted to it. 

In giving a description of the celebration last Arbor Day, April 27th, 1882, one 
of the Cincinnati daily papers said : 

" The east ridge of the park was thronged with associations, planting tablets (at 
each of fifty groups, planted the year before, in "Authors' Grove," a granite 
" marker " was placed last year, on which was cut in raised letters the name of the 
author and of the school planting the group. Each of the other groves referred to 
was marked by a large, flat sandstone, on which all the names were engraved) to 
the memories of the Presidents of the United States, the heroes of Valley Forge, 
and the pioneers of Cincinnati, in their respective groves, while the northern pro- 
jecting elope of the ridge was occupied by fully 17,000 children in honoring 'Authors' 
Grove.' Viewed from the summit of the ridge, immediately west, the sight was 
one of the most animating ever brought before the eyes of Cincinnatians. The en- 
tire ridge, nearly a third of a mile in length, was occupied by those persons taking 



OHIO FOEESTRY ASSOCIATION. 29 

part in the first-named ceremonies, while the slope designated was occupied by a 
dense mass of gayly-dressed children in active motion over a surface of about six 
acres, and whose voices, wafted across the deep hollow to the western ridge, sounded 
like the chattering from a grove full of happy birds. The eastern slope of the ridge 
was occupied by 1,500 or 2,000 spectators, who, reclining on the green spring sod of 
the grassy slopes, quietly surveyed the scene from a distance." 

Edbn Park on Abbob Day. 

The sentiment of the scholars in regard to trees, which was one of the direct 
results of the celebration, is clearly indicated by the fact that though there were 
thousands of children in Eden Park on Arbor Day, of both years, not one injured a 
tree in any manner. In contrast to this, a prominent writer for one of the leading 
journals of England, in an article strongly advocating the adoption by the public 
schools of Great Britain of the Cincinnati plan of celebrating tree-planting, said 
that in Epping Park, on every public holiday, the authorities employ a large force 
of special policemen to keep the people from wantonly injuring and destroying 
trees, and that, notwithstanding all the care and precaution taken to prevent it, 
trees are mutilated on all these public days. 

School Celebbations in Other Places. 

Tne Ohio State Forestry Association, recognizing the fact that the schools of 
the State must become one of the most powerful agents in carrying out the objects 
of the association, prepared a circular addressed to the trustees, superintendents and 
teachers of Ohio schools, requesting them to have the pupils under their charge 
celebrate Arbor Day with appropriate ceremonies. Previous to last Arbor Day this 
circular was sent to all parts of the State, and to many places outside of Ohio. It 
gives me pleasure to say that many schools, m and out of the State, celebrated the 
day, and that, as a consequence, thousands of trees were planted, and tens of 
thousands of school children outside of Cincinnati received instruction on and be- 
came interested in trees. Hon. B. L. Butcher, State Superintendent of the Schools 
of West Virginia, issued instructions to the city and county superintendents and to 
the teachers of his State, to celebrate tree-planting on our last Arbor Day, April 
27th. This movement was supported by the entire public press of the State. One 
number of the West Virgina School Journal, of which Superintendent Butcher is one 
of the editors, was exclusively devoted to this subject. And on Arbor Day the 
schools of all parts of that State, assisted by thousands of public-spirited citizens, 
planted trees in the school grounds, by the road-side, around the homes of the chil- 
dren, and dedicated them to authors, statesmen, soldiers and distinguished citizens. 
The day was celebrated, after the Cincinnati plan, in many places of our' own and of 
other States. 

I mention these facts to show that the subject, which I advocate is entirely 
practicable, and that it will be readily taken up, when properly presented to our 
people.* 

"•'■Note. — To assist in Arbor Day celebrations, and to furnish information to the people of our 
State as to the importance of trees on forests, a sixty-four page pamphlet has been prepared by me^ 
with preface by Judge Warren Higley, entitled : " Trees and Tree-planting ; with Directions and 



30 REPORT OF THE 

Should the annual celebration of tree-planting, the preparation for which affords 
ample opportunity for imparting all needful information in regard to trees and forestry? 
become general in our State, the time would not be far distant when such a public 
sentiment would be formed as would lead to the beautifying by trees of every city, 
town, and village in Ohio, as well as public highways, church and school grounds 
and the homes of the people in the country. In trutb, within the next twenty-five 
years thereafter the general aspect of many parts of the State would be changed, as 
has been that of Connecticut within the last few years, through the instrumentality 
of her schools under the leadership of Hon. B. G. Northrop, and of her "Improve- 
ment Societies", which have been organized through his eflforts. Pastor Oberlin, 
after whom Oberlin College, of this State, is named, required each boy and girl, be- 
fore he would administer the ordinance of confirmation, to bring a certificate that he 
or she had planted two trees. If but the youth of Ohio could be led to plant their 
two trees each, how by the children alone could our great State be enriched and 
beautified within the next fifty years. 

Tree-planting fosters a Love for Trees and Tree-cultube. 

The trees which the children plant, or which they assist in dedicating, will be- 
come dearer to them as year after year rolls on. As the trees grow, and their 
branches expand in beauty, so will the love for them increase in the hearts of those 
by whom they were planted or dedicated, and long before the children rfeach old age 
they will almost venerate these green and living memorials of youthful and happy 
days ; and as those who have loved and cared for pets will ever be the friends of our 
dumb animals, so will they ever be the friends of our forest trees. From the indi- 
vidual to the general, is the law ot our nature. Show me a man who in childhood 
had a pet, and we'll show you a lover of animals. Show me a person who in youth 
planted a tree that has lived and flourished, and I 'II show you a fri^^nd of trees and 
of forest culture. 

In this I speak from experience. The pets I had when a child led me to join 
the ''Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals". The trees I planted in early 
boyhood in front of my old New Hampshire Home have brought me before you to- 
day as the advocate of tree-planting and Arbor Day Celebrations, 

The Gary Tree. 

In further illustration of what I have said, I will relate an incident in the lives 
of Alice and Phoebe Gary, Ohio's greatest daughters. In 1832, when Alice was twelve 
years old, and Phoebe only eight, as these little girls were returning home from 
school one day, they found a small tree, which a farmer had grubbed up and thrown 
into the road. One of them picked it up, and said to the other, "Let us plant it." 
As soon as said, these happy children ran to the opposite side of the road, and with 
sticks — for they had no other implement — they dug out the earth, and in the hole 

Exercises for the Celebration of Arbor Day." Ttie first part of the pamphlet (44 pages) is taken up 
with lessons from history, and other important facts, relating to forestry and tree-planting, while the 
second part (20 pages) is devoted to selections on trees, in prose and poetry, from various authors. 

An edition of five thousand copies is now being published, under the auspices of the Ohio Stat 
Forestry Association, for general distribution. 



OHIO FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 31 

thus made they placed the treelet; around it with their tiny hands they drew the 
loosened mold, and pressed it down with their little feet. With what interest they 
hastened to it on their way to and from school, to see if it were growing ; and how 
they clapped their little hands for joy when they saw the buds start and the leaves 
begin to form ! With what delight did they watch it grow through the sunny days 
of Summer ! With what anxiety did they await its fate through the storms of Winter, 
and vt hen at last the long-looked for Spring came, with what feelings of mingled 
nhope and fear did they seek again their favorite tree ! 

But I must not pursue the subject further. It is enough to know that when 
these two sisters had grown to womanhood, and removed to New York City, they 
never returned to their old home without paying a visit to the tree that they had 
planted, and that was scarcely less dear to them than the friends of their childhood 
days. They planted and cared for it in youth ; they loved it in age. That tree is 
the large and beautiful sycamore which one sees in passing along the Hamilton, 
turnpike from College Hill to Mt. Pleasant, Hamilton county, Ohio. 

Old Liberty Ei,m. 

It was the custom of our New England ancestors to plant trees in the early settle- 
ment of our country, and dedicate them to liberty. Many of these "liberty trees", 
consecrated by our forefathers, are still standing. I remember, when a boy, the in- 
terest I felt in "Old Liberty Elm," that then stood in Boston. That old tree was 
planted by a schoolmaster long before the Revolutionary War, and dedicated by him 
to the independence of the Colonies. Around that tree, before the Revolution, the 
citizens of Boston used to gather to listen to the advocates of our country's freedom ; 
around it, during the war, they met to offer up thanks and supplications to Almighty 
God for the success of the patriot armies ; and, after the terrible struggle had ended, 
the people were wont to assemble from year to year in the shadow of that old tree 
to celebrate the liberty and independence of our country. It stood there till within 
a few years, a living monument of the patriotism of the citizens of Boston. The sight 
of that tree awakened patriotic emotions in every true American heart. And when 
at last that old tree fell, the bells in all the churches of Boston were tolled, and a 
feeling of sadness spread over city and State. Even in Ohio, there were eyes that 
moistened with tears when the news came that "Old Liberty Elm" had fallen in a 
storm. Such was the veneration in which it was held. 

Washington Elm. 

Another of these "liberty elms" now stands in Cambridge, Mass. Under the 
shade of this venerable tree Washington first took command of the Continental 
army, July 8, 1775. How the affection of every lover of his country clings around 
that tree ! What care has been taken of it, what marks of esteem have been shown 
it by the citizens of Cambridge, may be judged by those who have seen it standing, 
as it does, in the center of a great public thoroughfare, its trunk protected by an iron 
fence from injury by passing vehicles, which for more than a century have turned 
out in deference to this monarch of the Revolution. 

(In this connection let me state that a few years ago, a number of American 
Scientists, in order to determine the amount of moisture given out by forest trees, se- 



32 REPORT OF THE 

lected the "Washington Elm" on which to make their experiments. They calcula- 
ted that the leaves of this tree would cover with a single layer 200,000 square feet of 
space, and that they gave out every fair day during the growing season, 15,500 lbs., 
or 7f tons moisture to the atmosphere.) 

"Trees already grown ancient have been consecrated," says Lossing in a letter, 
"by the presence of eminent personages or by some conspicuous event in our National 
History, such as the Elm tree at Philadelphia, at which William Penn made his 
famous treaty with nineteen tribes of barbarians ; the Charter Oak at Hartford, which 
preserved the written guarantee of the liberties of the Colony of Connecticut; the 
wide-spreading Oak tree of Flushing, Long Island, under which George Fox, the 
founder of the Society of Friends or Quakers, preached ; the lofty Cypress tree in 
the Dismal Swamp under which Washington reposed one night in his young man- 
hood ; the huge French Apple tree near Ft. Wayne, Indiana, where Little Turtle, the 
great Miami Chief, gathered his warriors ; the Elm tree at Cambridge, in the shade 
of which Washington first took command of the Continental Army on a hot sum- 
mer's day ; the Tulip tree on King's Mountain battle-field in South Carolina, on which 
ten bloodthirsty Tories were hung atone time; the tall Pine tree at Ft. Edward, N. Y., 
under which tlie beautiful Jane McCrea was slain ; the magnificent Black Walnut 
tree, near Haverstraw on the Hudsm, at which General Wayne mustered his forces 
at midnight, preparatory to his gallant and successful attack on Stony Point ; the 
grand Magnolia tree near Charleston, S. C, under which General Lincoln held a 
council of war previous to surrendering the city ; the great Pecan tree at Villere's 
plantalion, below New Orleans, under which a portion of the remains of General 
Pakenham was buried, and the Pear trees planted, respectively, by Governor Endi- 
cott, of Massachusetts, and Governor Stuyvesant, of New York, more than two hun- 
dred years ago. 

These trees all have a place in our National history, and are inseparable from it 
because they were so consecrated. My eyes have seen all but one of them, and patri- 
otic emotions were excited at the sight. How much more significant and suggest- 
ive is the dedication of a young tree as a monument." (Extract from letter) 

Other Famous Treks. 

A few fiimous trees of this country, not previously named, are given here. The 
"Burgoyne elm", at Albany, N. Y. : This tree was planted on the day the British 
general, Burgoyne, was brought a prisoner into Albany, the day after the surrender. 
The weeping-willow in Cop's burying-ground, near Bunker Hill : This willow, grown 
from a branch taken from the tree that shaded the grave of Napoleon at St. Helena, 
now waves over that of Cotton Mather, so noted in Salem witchcraft. Cop's bury- 
ing-ground is so near where the battle was fought that a number of grave-stones can 
be seen to-day which were marked and broken by bullets fired by British soldiers in 
that battle. The ashtrees planted by General Washington at Mt. Vernon : These 
ashes form a beutiful row of immense trees, which are the admiration of all who 
visit the home of the "Father of his Country." 

" Woodman Spare That Tree." 

I will close this paper with the familiar, beautiful and appropriate lines by Geo. 
P. Morris, entitled, " Woodman Spare That Tree," first, however, giving you a brief 
account of the way in which Mr. Morris came to write the poem. 



OHIO FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 33^^ 

In a letter to a friend, dated New York, February 1, 1837, Mr, Morris gave in 
substance the following Eccount : 

Riding out of town a few da3'S since, in company with a friend, an old gentle- 
man, he invited me to turn down a little romantic woodland pasF, not far from 
Bloomiugdale. " Y'our object?" inquired I. '' Merely to look once more at an old 
oak tree planted by my grandfather loag before I was born, under which I used to 
play when a boy, and where my sisters played with me. There I often listened to 
the good advice of my parents. Father, mother, sisters — all are gone ; nothing but 
the old tree remains," And a paleness overspread his fine countenance, and tears 
came to his eyes. After a moment's pause, he added : " Don't think me foolish. 
I don't know how it is: I never ride out but I turn down this lane to look at 
that old tree. I have a thousand recollections about it, and I always greet it as a fa- 
miliar and well-remembered friend." These words were scarcely uttered when the 
old gentleman cried out, " There it is!" Near the tree stood a man with his coat 
ofi", sharpening an ax. "Y'ou'renot going to cut that tree down, surely ? " " Y'es, 
but I am, though," said the woodman, "What for?" inquired the old gentleman, 
with choked emotion. " What for ? I like that 1 Well, I will tell you. I want the 
tree for firewood." " What is the tree worth to you for firewood ? " "Why, when 
down, about ten dollars." "Suppose I should give you that sum," said the old gen- 
tleman, " would you let it stand ? " " Yes." " You are sure of that ? " " Positive." 
" Then gi\'e me a bond to that eff'ect." We went into the little cottage in which my 
companion was born, and which is now occupied by the woodman. I drew up the 
bond. It was signed, and the money paid over. As we left, the youLg girl, the 
daughter of the woodman, assured us that while she lived the tree should not be 
cut. These circumstances made a strong impression on my mind, and furnished me 
with the materials for the song I send you. 

Woodman, &pare that tree 1 

rouch not a single bongh I 
In youth it sheltered me, 

And I'll protect it now. 
T was my forefather's hand 

That placed it near his cot; 
There, woodman, let it stand ; 

Thy ax shall harm it not I 

That old familiar tree. 

Whose glory and renown 
Are spread o'er land and sea, — 

And wouldst thou hack it down? 
Woodman, forbear thy stroke I 

Cut not its earth-bound ties; 
O, spare that aged oak. 

Now towering to the skies! 

i 

When but an idle boy 

I sought its grateful shade; 
In all their gushing joy, 

Here, too, my sisters playell. 
My mother kissed me here : 

My father pressed my hand — 
Forgive the foolish tear : 

But let that old cak stand. 



34 EEPORT OF THE 

My heart-strings round thee cling, 

Close as thy bark, old friend ; 
Here shall the wild-bird sing, 

And still thy branches bend. 
Old tree ! the storm still brave ! 

And, woodman, leave the spot; 
While I've a hand to save, 

Thy ax shall harm it not. 



George P. Morris. 



LETTERS FROM AUTHORS. 
\ 

A few of the letters from living authors, and from the representatives of others 
•who have passed away, received by me on the occasion of the celebration of tree- 
planting by the Cincinnati public schools, are appended to my paper, to show how 
the subject is looked upon by great men and women of our country, whose opinions 
are far more important than my own. 

[From J. T. Headley, Historian.] 

Mr. John B. Peaslee — Dear Sir: It is gratifying to see Ohio take such deep 
interest in tree-planting, which is beginning so strongly to attract public attention. 
Setting apart one day for this purpose and making it a general holiday will add at- 
tractiveness to utility, and give it a deeper hold on the popular heart. But the hap- 
piest thought of all was to make it a holiday for the public schools, and have the 
children practically take part in it and set out groups of trees for their favorite 
authors. You thus not only connect trees with the associations of childhood and 
their pleasantest holidays, but with authors from whom they receive their earliest 
and best impressions. 

We sometimes forget that the highest aim of education is to form right charac- 
ter — and that is accomplished more by impressions made upon the heart than by 
knowledge imparted to the mind. 

The awakening of our best sympathies — the cultivation of our best and jiurest 
tastes — strengthening the desire to be useful and good, and directing youthful ambi- 
tion to unselfish ends — such are the objects of true education. Surely nothing can 
be better calculated to procure these ends than the holiday you have set apart for 
the public schools. Yours, very truly, 

J. T. Headley. 

[From Oliver Wendell Holmes] 

Mr. John B. Peaslee — Dear Sir : You and your friends have chosen a very 
pleasant and most useful way of commemorating some of the authors whom you 
think worthy of being remembered by their fellow-countrymen. I hope that the 
example set of planting trees as their monuments will do as much for American 
landscape as the best of our authorship has done for American literature. 

The trees may outlive the memory of more than one of those in whose honor 
they were planted. But if it is something to make two blades of grass grow where 
only one was growing, it is much more to have been the occasion of the planting of 
an oak which shall defy twenty scores of winters, or of an elm which shall canopy 
with its green cloud of foliage half as many generations of mortal immortalities. 
I have written many verses, but the best poems I have produced are the trees I 



OHIO FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 35 

planted on the hill-side which overlooks the hroad meado^\l?, scolloped and rounded 
at their edges by loops of the sinuous Housatonic. Nature finds rhymes for them 
in the recurring measures of the seasons. Winter strips iliem of their ornaments 
and gives them, ?s it were, in prose translation, and Suuiiuer reclothes them in all 
the splendid phrases of their leafy language. 

What are these maples and beeches and birckes but o les and idyls and madri- 
gals? What are these pines and firs and spruces but holy hymns, too solemn for 
the many-hued raiment of their gay deciduous neighbors ? 

But I must not let my fancy run away with me. It is enough to know that 
when we plant a tree, we are doing what we can to make our ])lanet a more whole- 
some and happier dwelling-place for those who come after us, if not for ourselves. 

As you drop the seed, as you plant the sapling, your left hand hardly knows 
what your right hand is doing. But Nature knows, and in due time the Power that 
sees and works in secret will reward you openly. You have been warned against 
hiding your talent in a napkin ; but if your talent takes the form of a maple-key or 
an acorn, and your napkin is a shred of the apron that covers "rhe lap of the earth,'-' 
you may hide it there, unblamed; and when you render in your account you will 
find that your deposit has been drawing compound interest all the time. * * » 

Believe me, dear Mr. Peaslee, very truly yours, 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

[Extract from letter of Gen. Samuel F. Gary, cousin of Alice and Phoebe Gary.] 

"Imparting to waste places more than their pristine beauty and associating the 
names of departed loved ones with our work is a poetic and sublime conception. It 
symbolizes our faith in a resurrection to a higher and better life when the hard 
struggles of this sin-cursed world are passed." 

[From Moncure D. Conway. 

Dear Sir : It is a great pleasure to me to think of the young people of Cincin- 
nati assembling to celebrate the planting of trees and connecting them with the 
names of authors whose works are the farther and higher products of our dear old 
Mother Nature. An oriental poet says of his hero : 

"Sunshine was he in a wintry place. 
And in midsummer, coolness and bhade." 

Such are all true thinkers, and no truer monuments of them can exist than 
beautiful trees. Our word book is from the beech tablets on which men used to 
write. Our word bible is from the Greek for bark of a tree. Our word paper is from 
the tree papyrus — the tree which Emerson found the most interesting thing he saw 
in Sicily. Our word library is from the Latin liber, bark of a tree. Thus literature is 
traceable in the growth of trees, and was originally written on leaves and wooden 
tablets. The West responds to the East in associating great writers with groups of 
trees, and a grateful posterity will appreciate the poetry of this idea as well while it 
enjoys the shade and beauty which the schools are securing for it. 

Very truly yours, 

MONCUBK D. COKWAY. 



36 REPORT OF THE 

[Extract from letter of Prof. B. Pickman Mann, son of Horace Mann.] 

" The project of connecting the planting of trees with the names of authors is a« 
beautiful one, and one certain to exert a beneficial influence upon the children who 
participate in these exercises. The institution of an 'Arbor Day' is highly com- 
mendable from its artistic consequences, and can not fail to result in great benefit to 
the climate and to the commercial interests of the country when it becomes an insti- 
tution of general adoption." 

" [From Prof. William A. Mowry, Ph. DJ 

John B. Peaslke, Ph. D — My Dear Sir: The experience of the Cincinnati 
Schools will illustrate the importance of acquainting the youthful mind with our best 
authors and their productions. 

I V)elieve it ih well agreed, also, that truths and facts are more firmly impressed 
upon the mind by object lessons than by any other means. 

Moreover, the planting of trees and the cultivation of forests are but just begin- 
ning t) be appreciated by our people as matters of great importance. 

I conceive, therefore, that you have instituted one of the best educational pro- 
jects of the age in organizing and carrying forward in a systematic manner the 
planting of trees in the public parks by the schoolchildren — attended by appropriate 
intellectual exercises, especially including the recitation of selections from these 
authors' best thoughts. Attended as these exercises will be with the parade and 
ceremony of a celebration, and with the attraction and pleasures to the young minds 
of a holiday, the exercises and what they symbolize will be deeply stamped upon the 
memory of the school children, an.d the entire effect upon them must prove to be of 
the most important and satisfactory character. I congratulate you and the children 
of your beautiful city on the inauguration of this excellent custom, and can not but 
believe it will be widely followed by the cities of our country. 

Very respectfully yours, 

William A. Mowry. 

[Letter from Dr. Edward H. Parker, author of the lines placed at the head of Garfield's casket in the 
catafalqne at Cleveland, beginning "Life's race well run."] 

Jf^hn B. Peaslee, Esq., Superintendent of the Cincinnati Schooh : 

My Dear Sir — Accept my thanks for the interesting account of the "Authors' 
Grove" and its ceremonies. Either or both is entitled to the thanks of the good 
people of Cincinnati. Trees, in their variety, are always a delightful study to me, 
and few, I think, really know how much of beauty and individuality there is in them. 
Such a grove near a large city will give valuable instruction to the young people, 
while the designation of the various groups, as commemorative of the distinguished 
men whose name each bears, will induce further inquiry as to who and what they 
are or were. They will find that there is something very interesting, almost very 
solemn to them, when in after years they stand by those saplings which they have 
planted and find them towering high above their heads and boasting the pomp of 
their lineage of ages. Here at best are "old families," a veritable aristocracy. * * 
Believe me, yours, very respectfully, 

Edward H. Parker. 



OHIO FOEESTRY ASSOCIATION. 37 

[From Mrs. Mary H. Rusbell, daughter of Mrs. Lydia M. Sigourney.] 

Wathrbury, Conn., March 9, 1883. 

Mr. Peaslek — Dear Sir: I thank you for a copy of the Cincinnati Times re- 
'Ceived a day or two ago, containing an|account of the work of the Public Scliools in 
setting out forest trees in "Authors' Grove." It is a beautiful plan, worthy of the 
city where it has been originated and carried out. 

I detire to express to you, and through you to the Twelfth District School, my 

appreciation of the memorial to my mother, Mrs. Sigourney, and to say what a 

peculiar interest she felt in this work of planting trees. She used often to speak 

with great admiration of the patriotism of her friend, the Hon. James Hillhouse, of 

New Haven, who beautified that city by planting with his own hand the elms which 

have since made it famous ; and when she was notified, many years ago, that a young 

town in Iowa had been called Sigourney in her honor, she sent a sum of money to 

be expended in shade trees to ornament its public square. There seems a peculiar 

fitness in these living monuments to those whose names we would still keep with us' 

now that their bodily presence has departed, and I trust that the trees may flourish 

and prosper, and keep green many years the memory of each one for w'hom they 

-have been planted. 

Yours very truly, 

Mary H. Eussell. 

[Extract of letter from John G. Whittier.] 

"For many years I have felt a deep interest in the conservation of our forests 
and the planting of trees. The wealth, beauty, fertility, and healthfulness of the 
country largely depend upon it. My indignation is yearly aroused by the needless 
sacrifice of some noble oak or elm, and especially of the white pine, the grandest 
tree in our woods, which I would not exchange for oriental palms. 

My thanks will be due to the Public School which is to plant a group of trees in 
your Eden Park in my honor. I could ask no better memorial. I have always ad- 
mired the good taste of the Sokokis Indians around Sebago Lake, who, when their 
chief died, dug around a beech tree, swaying it down, and placed bis body in the 
rent, and then let the noble tree fall back into its original place, a green and beautiful 
xQonument for a son of the forest." ' 

On Tree-planting Associations. 
[Extract from letter of Susan Fennimore Cooper, daughter of James Fenuimore Cooper.] 

"The subject of forestry is one in which I have been very deeply interested for 
many years. In a volume on country life, published long since under the title of 
'Rural Hours,' I already deplored the extravagant and senseless destruction of trees 
in our country, not only wild forests, but lesser woods and groves, and single trees of 
unusual beauty. There has been really a recklessness on this subject which may be 
called barbarous, and utterly unworthy of the civilization on which we pride our- 
selves. But, most happily, our people appear to be awakening to the vast importance 
of this question in different parts of the country. Some twenty years since a Village 
Improvement Society was organized in this neighborhood, whose object was the same 
in spirit as the noble Arbor Society of Ohio— the planting of trees for shade and or- 



38 REPORT OF THE 

nament in the streets, near the gateways, in waste spots such as are found in everjr 
neighborhood, about springs, wells, and other positions where they would form 
pleasing groups— living pictures as it were — and the preservation of trees of more 
than common beauty and interest ; all these entered into the work of the Improve- 
ment Society." 

[Extract from speech on Arbor Day, by Hon. B. G. Northrop.] 

"Teachers can easily interest their pupils in adorning the school grounds. With 
proper pre-arrangement as to the selection and procuring of trees, vines or shrubs. 
Arbor Day may accomplish wonders. Many hands •vrill make merry, as well as 
light, the work. Such a holiday will be an attractive occasion of social enjoyment 
and improvement. The parents should be persuaded to approve and patronize the 
plan. It tends to fraternize the people of a district, when they thus meet on com- 
mon ground, and young and old work together for a common object, where all differ- 
ences of rank, or sect, or party, are forgotten. The plantings and improvements 
thus made will be sure to be protected. They will remain as silent, but effective 
teachers of the beautiful to all the pupils, gradually improving their taste and char- 
acter. Such work done around the school naturally extends to the homes. You 
improve the homes by improving the schools as truly as you improve the schools by 
improving the homes. 'The hope of America is the homes of America.' It has long 
been my ambition to improve the homes and home-life of our industrial classes and 
help them to realize that the highest privilege and central duty of life is the creation 
of happy homes, for the home is the chief school of virtue, the fountain-head of in- 
dividual and national strength and prosperity. It is a worthy ambition to suri'ound 
one's home and children with such scenes and influences as shall make the every- 
day life and labors brighter and happier, and help one to go sunny and singing to his 
work. Our youth should early share in such efforts- for adorning the surroundings 
of their homes, and planting trees by the wayside. How attractive our roads may 
become by long avenues of trees. This is beautifully illustrated in many countries 
of Europe. 

"Arbor Day will become one of the institutions of the country, in which our boys 
and girls will take an eager share and genuine pleasure, and thus gain a liking for 
trees that will never be effaced. Nebraska has the honor of originating Arbor Day. 
Some ten years ago, at the request of its State Board of Agriculture, the governor ap- 
pointed the second Wednesday in April as the day to be devoted to economic tree- 
planting, and it is claimed that twelve millions of trees were planted on that day. 
The successive governors have continued thus to recognize this da}'. The schools 
last Spring adopted the 'Cincinnati plan' of planting, 'memorial trees.' 

"The recent Spring floods and Summer droughts in Indiana, Ohio, and elsewhere, 
increasingly and now alarmingly destructive, are calling public attention to the 
cause and remedy as never before. The denudation of the hills and mountain 
sources of the springs is the leading cause of these freshets, and these can be reme- 
died only by the extensive re-foresting of such lands. This great result, which 
must be the work of time, will be best accomplished by interesting the young, as well 
as the old, in tree-planting. The Arbor Day in schools will do immense good in this 
direction. We need to popularize and diffuse the sentiment of trees. This will beet 



OHIO FORESTRY ASSOCIATIOX. 30 

secure their propagation and pro;;ection. Tiae frequency of forest fires is the common 
objection to economic tree-planting. But let the sentiment of trees be duly culti- 
vated, and they will be regarded as our friends, as in the case in Germany. The 
public need to understand that the interests of all classes are concerned in the con- 
servation of forests. In Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, and other European coun- 
tries, this subject is so taught in their schools that the people generally appreciate 
the value of trees and the need of protecting them. Hence, an enlightened public 
sentiment is a better guardian of their forests than the national police." 

Improvement Societies, or Tree-pi-anting Arsociations. 

In order to facilitate the organization of Village Improvement Societies the fol- 
lowing Constitution is given here. It is modeled after the constitution of the Laurel 
Hill Association of Stockbridge, Mass., and of the "Wyoming and College Hill (Ham- 
ilton County, Ohio), Village Improvement Societies. 

article I. 
This Society shall be called the Improvement Society. 

article II. 

The object of this Society shall be to improve and ornament the streets and pub- 
lic grounds of the village by planting and cultivating trees, establishing and protect- 
ing grass-plats and borders in the avenues, and generally doing whatever may tend 
to the improvement of the village as a place of residlence. 

article III. 

The business of the Society shall be conducted by a board of nine directors — five 
gentlemen and four ladies, to be elected annually by the Society — who shall c> nsti- 
tute the board. This board shall, from its own number, elect one President, two 
Vice-presidents, a Secretary,and Treasurer, and shall appoint such committees as 
they may deem advisable to further the ends of the Society. 

article IV. 

It shall be the duty of the President, and, in his absence, of the senior Vice-presi- 
dent, to preside at all meetings of the Society, and to carry out all orders of the 
Board of Directors. 

article V. 

It shall be the duty of the Secretary to keep a correct and careful record of all 
proceedings of the Society and of the Board of Directors, in a book suitable for their 
preservation, and such other duties as ordinarily pertain to the oflSce. 

article VI. 

It shall be the duty of the Treasurer to keep the funds of the Society, and to 
make such disbursements as may be ordered by the Board of Directors. 



40 EEPORT OF THK 

AITICLE VII. 

No debt sliall le ccntracteJ by tbe Board of D'ractors beyond the amount of 
available funds within their control to pay it, and no member of this Society shall be 
liable for any debt of the Scciety beyond the amount of his or her subscription. 

ARTICLE VIII. 

Any adult person may become a membar of this Society by paying two dollars 
($2.00) annually. Any person not of age who shall plant and protect a tree, under 
the direction of the Board of Diie^torp, or shall pay the sum of $1.00 annually, may 
become a member of this Society until of age, after which time their antual dues 
shall be increased to two dollars ($2.00), the same as other adults. 

ARTICLE i.\. 

The annual meeting of the Society shall be held during the first week^f October, 
at such place as the Board of Directors may select, and a notice of such meeting shall 
be posted in prominent places through the village. Other meetings of the Society 
may be called by the Board of Directors when desirable. 

ARTICLE X. 

At the annual meeting, the Board of Directors shall report the amount of money 
received during the year, and the source from which it has been received ; the 
amount of money expended during the year, and the objects for which it has been 
expended ; the number of trees planted at the cost of the Society, and the number 
planted by individuals ; and, generally, all acts of the Board that may be of interest 
to the Society. This report shall be entered on the record of the Society. 

ARTICLE xi. 

This Constitution may be amended with the approval of two-thirds of the 
members present, at any annual meeting of the Society, or at any special meeting 
called for that purpose, a month's notice of the proposed amendment, with its object, 
having been given. 

Men and women of Ohio, organize Tree-planting Associations! Boys and girls, 
plant, or cause to be planted, your two trees each I 



PROFITS OF FOR; ST CULTURE. 

An Address by Hon. Emil Rothe, 

Of Cincinnati. 

This country is the youngest of all the civilized countries of the world. Its popu- 
lation has, until very recently, been engaged in a continuous combat against wild 
nature. The time at which dense forests were hindering and retarding the progress 
of culture, and when the woodman's ax had to open space for the plow and the 
spade, is within the clear remembrance of most of us. At first sight it seems 
therefore a paradox to advise the planting of new forests while the destruction of the 



OHIO FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 41 

existing ones but a short while ago was a matter of necessity, and is still going 
on in several parts of the country. But it has become an accomplished fact, that a 
gradual deterioration of our climate and diminution of the fertility of the soil is al- 
ready resulting from the wanton waste of the forests, and that scarcity of timber is 
either badly felt or impending in many localities. 

We cannot close our eyes to the sad experience established by history, that the 
very best and most fertile regions of the eastern hemisphere, those in which the 
very cradle of civilization used to stand, have, by the destruction of their forests, 
been converted into deserts, and we have to expect that parts of our own blessed 
country will meet with the same fate, if reproduction is not immediately attended to. 

Dr. Milliken, of Hamilton, in his excellent lecture, delivered at the last 
year's meeting of this Society at Cincinnati, exhibited a graphic description of the 
denuded hills of eastern Ohio, the productive soil of which is gradually being washed 
away by the rains, and which will certainly become desolate piles of rock, if not re- 
planted with trees before the last layer of ground is carried down into the brooks and 
streams. At the same meeting. Dr. Loring, the U. S. Commissioner of Agriculture, 
furnished carefully compiled statistics, from which it appears that Ohio and Indiana 
are suffering an alarming decrease of their supply of timber. 

Many patriotic thinkers and political economists have given timely warning, and 
are insisting upon energetic and practical efTorts to remedy the evil by systematic 
reproduction of the forests in those localities in which the natural ones have already 
been exhausted. But, how shall it be done ? Neither the federal authorities nor the 
State governments have so far paid any attention to this important subject. Private 
enterprise hesitates to take hold of it. We hear people say, "who gurantees it to be 
remunerative ? It takes too long a time before any practical results of any conse- 
quence can be effected. We are not a slow-moving people. We have no time to 
wait for the growiug of trees." All these objections are based upon erroneous sup- 
positions. 

Many millions of dollars of American capital are invested in various enterprises 
which require a much longer time to yield profit or income, and never pay nearly as 
well as systematic forest culture in the proper locality. Great fortunes are risked in 
wild speculations, in railroads which pay no dividends, in mining stocks which en- 
rich only the agents, or brokers selling them, in lands and lots, which never attain 
the expected increase of value. But there is certainly no risk in forest culture. It 
produces an article of general and steadily increasing demand, and it can be calcu- 
lated with almost mathematical certainty what profit may be derived from it and 
within what time. 

The fact that it is highly remunerative in all E irope, where land is much higher 
in price than here, should justify the expectation that it will be profitable here. Our 
soil and climate produce a much larger variety of valuable timber than any European 
country. Several species of American trees are now cultivated there very extensively, 
because of the superior qualities of the same, and with a view to large profit there- 
from. Our American hickory, black walnut, hard maple, and wild cherry, for instance, 
have none of their equals in Europe. They excite the envy of European carriage- 
makers, furniture men, and manufacturers of tools. They are now largely imported 
from America, but the forest-men of Germany and France are earnestly engaged in 



42 ♦ REPORT OF TUE 

raising them for the home market. Now, it is well known, that on this continent 
forest trees grow much quicker and comparatively taller than in the eastern hemi- 
sphere. Here the most useful trees attain their full developement in two-thirds of 
the time required in Europe, an advantage which can hardly be overestimated. 

In the United States the consumption of timber per capita of the population is 
infinitely larger than in Europe, where no frame houses are built, where no new 
settlements aie made, and where only a^very small minority of the people are so 
situated that they may indulge in the luxury of fine furniture, buggies, and carriages. 
The parlor and sitting-room furniture of any of our skilled mechanics, or small shop- 
keepers, made up from bUck walnut, cherry, or ash, would amply do for many a 
European officer of more than ordinary rank. In the rural districts of Spain, Italy, 
France, and Germany, hardly one out of a hundred persons is able to buy furniture 
of what we would call the most common kind. Here in America, the proportion of 
the use of timber for furniture and carriage work to its production has become really 
alarming. Within the p*st twenty-five years, the price of such timber has risen at 
a rapid rate, and is still increasing. At any place not too distant from the ordi- 
nary transportation lines, every year's growth of a walnut, maple, or hickory tree 
represents a sure and respectable increase of the owner's capital. 

The governments of Prussia, of several of the smaller German principalities, 
and of France, Austria and Italy, make forest-culture an unfailing source of a large 
yearly revenue. They find it profitable to buy tracts of inferior lands at prices equal 
to those of our best farming lands, and to stock them with timber. Many private 
landowners there also derive a large yearly income from their forests without ever 
diminishing the area of the same. Forests there are divided into enough equal par- 
cels for yearly cutting, to give the trees sufficient time for development, and each 
parcel is immediately replanted after having been cleared. Excepting a few remote 
mountain districts, there are no more natural forests in Central and Western Europe. 
It is not profitable to let any forest tree remain growing, after it has attained full 
age, as the forester calls it. In Central Europe, oak grows to perfection in eighty to 
one hundred and twenty, beech and pine in thirty to fifty years. But it is not 
always intended to raise trees to full size, and it is really not so remunerative. 

Only the better class of wheat or meadow-land nets a greater average revenue 
in twenty -five years, than well-managed forests — a fact which may at first sight seem 
incredible, but which is easily accounted for by comparison between the yearly ex- 
penses of grain culture and the trifling outlay required for the planting and main- 
tenance of a forest alter the trees have become two or three years old, and by taking 
in consideration the frequent failures of grain crops and the sure steadiness of the 
growth of trees. Planting may be done by children. 

With all the advantages in our favor, why should forest-culture not be just as 
profitable in Ohio as in any part of Europe ? Our supply of timber, fit for furniture, 
carriages, and even cooperage is almost entirely exhausted. The many timber lots 
distributed all over the State are very deceptive. Closer inspection will show that 
nearly all the good trees of larger size have long ago found their way to the saw- 
mills, and that only the wind-twisted and heart-rotten ones have remained. Spon- 
taneous growth ie not regular enough to be really profitable. The future supply of 
good timber in Ohio will consequently depend mostly upon systematic forest cul- 
ture, and those first engaging in it will find ample remuneration for any capital or 



OHIO FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 43 

labor employed. They may derive a fortune from comparatively poor land, unfit for 
grain cropa and of little account for pasturage. 

Locust, although being a very hard and solid timber, will make fence posts and 
pavement blocks in eight years from the seed, and large trees in twelve years. Jts 
beautiful golden yellow color, mixed with jet black, makes it well adapted for ele- 
gant furniture. Catalpa, which makes the best railroad ties, grows even quicker. 
Hickory, now largely exported to Europe, and coming in great demand there, will 
prove exceedingly profitable. Sown in rows three feet apart, the nuts six inches 
apart, the young trees will grow up straight and elender. In five years, thinning out 
may commence, and hoop-poles may be sold ; the next thinning out will give ma- 
terial for spokes and buggy fills ; and the best trees, left standing at proper dis- 
tances, will make a fine forest in l3S3 than twenty years. Black Walnut is a 
slower grower, but is getting so costly that it is worth while to think of planting it 
for speculation. Men below the age of thirty-five years will be able to reap a rich 
harvest from the cultivation of this valuable timber before they have passed the 
best time of life. A forty-acre lot of Black Walnut forest, now planted, will, in 
twenty-five years, make its owner independently wealthy, without requiring much 
outlay or labor. I am told that a gentleman, who twenty years ago, planted twelve 
acres of land, in Southern Indiana, with pecan nuts, made a fortune by it, and 
created the source of a large yearly revenue. 

But the most profitable branch of forestry is certainly the cultivation of oak for 
tan-bark, on the renewal or Hackwald system. The acorns (about six bushels ta 
the acre) will be laid six inches apart, and in rows three feet distant. The young 
saplings, taken out by thinning, may be used to great advantage in planting. 
In twelve years (under very favorable conditions even sooner) the trees will be 
large enough for cutting and peeling. New sprouts will grow out from the roots in 
the same year, and the second growth will prove more thrifty than the first. The 
revenue from such forests may be called perpetual. In Europe vast tracts of second- 
class land are forested in this manner, and many formerly unproductive estates 
have been made highly valuable by this very Hackwald culture. The bark of the 
young and middle-sized trees contains more tannin, and is, therefore, of higher 
value than that taken from old trees. Here in Ohio the bark of the chestnut- 
leaved oak la preferred to all others, and almost exclusively used. The tree is a 
more rapid grower than other varieties of oak, and is satisfied with the poorest of 
soil. 

One of the most intelligent and experienced of the Cincinnati tanners informs 
me that in Cincinnati alone 18,000 cords of tan-bark are used per year, and even a 
larger quantitv in Louisville. Seven trees, of a foot in diameter, will furnish one 
cord. The chestnut-leaved oak never forms entire forests by spontaneous growth, but 
is interspersed among other timber. My informant counted the chestnut-leaved oak- 
trees on a comparatively very well-stocked 1,500 acre lot in Pulaski county, "ICy., and 
iound them to number 3,500. At that rate, the tanneries of Cincinnati and Louis- 
ville alone would every year use up the trees spontaneously growing on about 
100,000 acres of land. The few years since the Cincinnati and Southern Railroad 
has been in operation, a belt of fourteen miles on both sides of the road, and of 
about two hundred miles in length, has been almost totally depleted of that valuable 
variety of timber. The same gentleman ventures to predict that within twenty 



44 EEPORT OF THE 

yeard from now the entire supply of chestnut-oak bark in the United States will be 
exhausted. The price now varies from $14 to S28 per cord, and is steadily increas- 
ing. From carefully prepared reports of the forestry departments of the several 
German States and of Austria, it appears that an acre of properly cultivated Hack- 
wald, of the age of twelve years, will furnish from four to fivecoidsof tan-bark, 
an<i about six thousand feet of timber (board measure) fit for posts and for wagon- 
makers' work. The revenue from the wood covers all the expenses of planting 
and managing, leaving a surplus. 

Under the existing circumstances, the foresting of inferior lands in Ohio, Ken- 
tucky, or West Virginia, could not fail to lay the foundation of wealth for those who 
would now engage in it. Large tracts of such lands are now lying waste. The in- 
come derived therefrom is now generally not sufficient to pay the taxes and interest 
on the original purchase money. By the means of forest culture, they might be 
easily turned into well-paying estates, and while they are now not much more than a 
public nuisance, they may become an ornament of the State, and a great benefit for 
the general public. 



FORESTAL EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 

A Paper by Adolph Lkue, 

Secretary Ohio State Forestry Association. 

Through the unwearied labor of a few men, scientists as well as political econo- 
mists, and through the influence of the press, it has been shown and it is now fully 
understood that the prosperity of a country is to a very great extent dependent upon 
the proper condition and distribution of its forests. In view of* this significant fact, 
it is indeed very strange that we, as a people, devote so little attention to forestry — 
that many of our State governments have even not recognized forestry as a subject 
worthy of any consideration, and that but in a few States laws have been enacted to 
promote this great interest. The cause of such profound indifTerecce on the part of 
-our fellow-citizens lies in their want of knowledge of the true condition of our forests, 
and of he constantly increasing demand upon forest products, and the consequent 
rapid decrease of the forest area. In support of this assertion, I need not refer you 
to the enormous destruction of the forests in Wisconsin and Michigan, nor need I 
point to the South, where the saw-mills are now making great havoc among the for- 
ests, and to the deplorable condition in which the denuded regions are left. Our own 
beautiful State of Ohio, once among the richest in excellent timber forests, has for 
years been unable to supply its own wants. Some of the most valuable timber-trees 
have almost entirely disappeared in some counties, and are rapidly dying in others 
on account of the harsh treatment they receive. Since 1853 there has been a con- 
stant decrease in the forest area of almost every county of Ohio, and this decrease 
has been more rapid during the years between 1870 and 1881 than during the years 
between 18.53 and 1870. A glance at the remains of our woodlands reveals, that the 
most valuable and even the more ordinary kind of timber has been gathered from 



OHIO FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 45 

them. When the rest shall have been cut, or shall have perished by age, or mal- 
treatment, the forests will disappear ; for, owing to the pernicious practice of utilizing^ 
woodlands for pastures, the natural rejuvenescence of forests was made impossible. 
The ruin of tlie prosperity of our fair State is unavoidable, unless effective measurea 
bo taken to supply the future demands upon timber and other forest products, by 
carefully husbanding of what we have and by planting new forests. Here our diffi- 
culties commence. We may indeed sooner expect a spendthrift to instantly cease all 
revelry and become a careful and economic manager of a nearly squandered fortune, 
and by personal effort amass another, than to expect a people, whose relation to for- 
ests has, we may eay, by necessity been hostile for several generations to most 
economically husband an existing forest, and to plant, cultivate, and manage a new 
plantation. Tne late Dr. John A. Warder, whom future generations will call the 
father of American forestry, was right, when he emphatically declared that we 
neittier know u'/ierc,u7in< nor /i<n<; to plant. Now, there is no other alternative; we 
must learn this, and the sooner w^e commence, the better for us, for our fe)'ow-men, 
for our children, and for our country. 

We ina}'^ learn this in two different ways, namely, deductively and inductively , 
deductively, by the slow and often unreliable way of experience • inductively, by the 
more rapid and reliable way of experimenting. 

By way of illustrating which of the two methods is preferable, 1 beg leave ta 
briefly call your attention to the history of the development of agriculture. From 
the earliest time up to the beginning of the nineteenth century it was a mere em- 
pirical art, resting, as it were, solely upon the traditional maxims of experience, 
without any signs of progress. But when, in the first part of the present century, 
Liebig and others subjected those ancient maxims of experience to a series of scien- 
tific investigations, anew era began to dawn upon the most important occupation of 
mankind. Bince then, such investigations have been carried on in schools of agri- 
culture, which have been established in all civilized countries, and have reached the 
highest point of perfection in the agricultural experiment stations. The result is 
most gratifying, for by means of these investigations and systematic experiments 
agriculture has been elevated to the dignity of an exact science. 

This hasty glance at the history of the development of agriculture plainly indi- 
cates the course to be pursued in the attempt to raise forestry, the younger sister of 
agriculture, to the same dignity. A very successful beginning has already been made 
in Germany, where the idea of establishing forestal experiment stations originated. 
(') One or more chief stations, with an appropriate number of subordinate stations, 
have been established in nearly every State of Germany. The great importance 
which the governments of the States in which they are established attach to those 
stations may be seen from the fact that in Germany about $30,000 are expended 
annually for the maintenance of the same; and their number is steadily increasing. 
Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, and even Eussia, are following the example of 
Germany. 

If those nations whose attainments in forestry are truly great, deem it advisable, 
and even necessary, to su'bmit the maxims of long experience to a series of scien- 
tific investigations and systematic experiments, how much more should we, on this 
side of the Atlantic, ignorant as we are of almost everything pertaining to a reason- 



46 EEPORT OF THE 

able Bystem of forestry, make an effort to base that system, for which we are longing 
and which we greatly need, upon scientific principles. 

The need of forestal experiment stations in the United States and in Canada has 
long been felt, and the desire for the speedy establishment of the same has been ex- 
pressed in various ways and at different times f ). But this has been to no effect, be- 
cause of the want of a suitable plan of organizing the same. Our climate, the nature 
of our forest trees, the want of State forests and of trained foresters, render the adop- 
tion of the German plan inexpedient, and require a plan that shall be adapted to our 
peculiar circumstances, and at the same time meet the demands which can reason- 
ably be made upon such an institution. 

Convinced of the necessity of speedy action in this matter, I laid before the 
American Forestry Congress, at its meeting held in St. Paul, Minn., in August, 1883, 
the following plan of organization with special reference to Ohio : 

I. 

The object of the forestal experiment station in Ohio is the development of a 
rational system of forestry adapted to the wants of Ohio. 

II. 

The station shall consist of a cenler and an unlimited number of primary and 
secondary stations. 

III. 

The center of this station shall be the Agricultural College at Columbus, nnd 
shall be under the management of a director, whose aole duty shall be — 

1. To preside over all the meetings of the committee on forestal experiment 
stations (see § VI.) 

2. To ascertain the condition of the forests of Ohio, and the wants of forestry in 
this State, and to institute the necessary experiments and investigations. 

3. To prepare plans of experimentation and to devise suitable formula} for re- 
cording the work performed at the primary stations (see § IV.) 

4. To attend to all the correspondence connected with the station. 

5. To represent the forestal experiment station of Ohio at home and abroad. 

6. To report to the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, on or before the 
second Tuesday of January of each year, the work performed at the station, and 
to render an account of the money expended in experiment and investigation, 
and of all other expenditures of the station. 

7. To submit an estimate of the probable expenses of the station for the ensu- 
ing year. 

IV. 

The primary stations shall consist of at least three acres of ground, each, which 
shall be devoted to experimenting ; and the experiments, performed on the same 
shall be after a definite plan agreed upon by the Committee on Forestal Experiment 
Stations (see § VI.) 



I 



OHIO FORESTRY ASSOCIATIOX. 47 

V. 

The secondary stations shall be devoted to general investigations, such as analy- 
sis of soil, study of Forest-Botany and Forest-Zoology, testing the vitality of seeds 
of forest trees, determining the comparative value of forest products and testing 
the adaptability of the various kinds of woods for mechanical and technical purposes. 

VI. 

The directors of the forestal experiment station and the principles of primary 
and secondary stations shall constitute the Committee on Forestal Experiment 
Stations. 

VII. 

Each primary and each secondary station that may be adapted for making forestal 
meteorological observations, shall, at the desire of ihe principal of such station, be 
provided with the instruments necessary for such purpose. 

The Forestry Congress not only heartily endorsed this plan ('), but, by a resolu- 
tion, appointed a committee to recommend the adoption of the same to the several 
States of the Union and to the provinces of the Dominion of Canada (*). 

Tq effect an organization, based upon the above plan, the first step to be taken 
is the appointment oJ a director, who, having ascertained the needs of forestry in 
Ohio, should proceed at once to organize both primary and secondary stations. In 
this, however, proper care should be taken in locating the primary stations as well as 
in selecting the parties for conducting the experiments and for making the special 
investigations ; ignorant and unreliable persons should be rigidly excluded. 

As the State of Ohio still owns certain tracts of land adapted for forest culture, it 
would not only be proper, but even advisable, to utilize the same for experiment 
stations and model forest plantations. But the immediate future of our forests de- 
pends, and will depend, chiefly upon the farmers, who almost exclusively constitute 
the owners of property that is available for forest culture. They are, therefore, the 
first to reap the benefit of a rational system of forestry, are thus directly interested 
in forestal experiments, and will, it may be confidently expected, assist in making 
the enterprise a success. But there is another and. a more direct inducement for 
farmers to participate in this great and noble work. The experimentation is, to him 
who undertakes it, an excellent school of forestry, which not only charges no tuition, 
but rewards him with at least the nucleus of a forest, which will greatly enhance the 
vaV'^i of his farm. 

'flie readiness with which several very intelligent farmers of this Commonwealth 
have consented to perform on their own lands, and at their own expense, such ex- 
periments as the committee on forestal experiment stations may suggest, guarantees 
the success of the enterprise. 

It is, however, not only the farmer who will be benefited by such forestal ex- 
periments; almost all of those engaged in the mechanic arts are more or less inter- 
ested ; while, for example, the builders, the cabinet-makers, the coopers, the carriage 
and wagon-makers, the manufacturers of matches, spools, bungs, lead-pencils, tool- 



48 REPORT OF THE 

handles, and of other hke articles, depend entirely upon the forest for the material 
used in their respective arts, there is scarcely any other industry which does not, in 
one form or another, draw upon the products of the forest. The great railroad and 
telegraph companies, which consume vast quantities of wood in the construction of 
their roads and lines, are greatly interested in this question. An abundance of for- 
ests, and a cheap method of raising them, will have a material eflect upon the prices 
of the raw forest products, upon which the existence of such industries depends. 

But the object of forestal experiment stations is not limited to forest-culture. To 
test the relative value of forest implements, to devise new methods of obtaining forest 
products, to find new uses for the same, and to discover new forest products for 
certain purposes, are very significant features of the secondary stations. While the 
primary stations aim to furnish the means by which to increase the wealth of the 
owners of forests, the secondary stations will call into existence new industries and 
promote those now in existence. It will therefore be to their own advantage, if 
these several in(lu.stries fostt^r this great enterprise by making direct researches, or 
by giving such information as will from time to time be asked of them, or by render- 
ing pecuniary aid which will be needed for such investigation. 

The scientific department of the station is of exceedingly great importance, and 
its development should have the immediate and most scrupulous attention of the 
director. Although this department should ever be considered a distinct feature of 
the forestal experiment station, it should never be isolated, but be conjoined with every 
experiment and investigation. The scientists and the practical forester must go 
hand in hand, else the object of the institution will not be attained. 

Unfortunately, the various branches of science, which find application in forestry, 
have not been studied very extensively in this peculiar relation in this country ; the 
terms Forest-botany, Forest-zoology, Forest-geodesy, etc., are almost unknown ; 
whence only such specialists as are perfectly reliable and capable of making original 
investigations should be intrusted with the scientific work of a secondary station. 

An experiment station organized according to this plan will, I believe, meet all 
the demands that can be made upon such an institution. It places the practical 
work, where it belongs, in the hands of those who are best qualified for it, and who 
are the recipients of the benefits resulting from the same. The State, by appointing 
a director, serves merely as an instrument to effect the organizalion, to collect the 
results, and to make them known through appropriate reports, which will become 
the solid foundation of a syxtem of forestry adapted to the wants and conditions of Ohio. 



NOTES. 

('). For information as to what has been done in Germany, compare : 

a. Dr. Richard Hess: "Ueber die Organisation des Forstlichen Versuchswe- 
sens". Giessen. 1870. 

b. Dr. Franz Baur : "Ueber forstliche Versuchsstationen". Stuttgart. 1868. 

c. Dr. Richard Hess : Die forstliche Unterrichtsfrage". Berlin. 1874. 

d. Dr. Bernhard Donkelmann : "Die Forstakademie Eberswalde. Berlin. 1880. 

e. Dr. Freiherr Ferdinand v. Seckendorf : "Das forstliche Versuchswesen. 

f August Ganghofer: "Das forstliche Versuchswesen". Augsburg. 1878-1884. 



OHIO FORESTRY ASSOCIATIOX. 49 

g. Dr. Ernst Ebermayer : "Die physikaliscben Einwirkungen des AV aides auf 
Luft und Boden". Aschaffenburg. 1873. 

h. Dr. Ernst Ebermayer : "Gescbicbtliche Eutwickelung der forstlich meteo- 
rologiscben Stationen, Essay in "Forstliches Versucbswesen," bei A. Ganghofer.Vol. 
II, part 1, pp. 1-16. 

i. Adolph Leue : Forestal Experiment Stations in Germany ; American 
Journal of Forestry, 1883, August number, 

C^. The American Forestry Congress passed at its session in Cincinnati, in 1882,. 
the following resolution : 

Rtsolved, That it is the unanimous sentiment of this Forestry Congress now 
assembled at Cincinnati, Ohio, that the Congress of the United States should at a 
very early day take such proper steps and enact such further laws as will increase 
the forestry interest of this country, and to that end establibh at the several agricul- 
tural institutions, both State and National, experimental forestry stations, to be con- 
structed on the same general principles as those in Germany. 

The above resolution was introduced by Senator Horace Wilson, of Columbus, 
upon hearing my paper on Forestal Experiment Station!', read before the Congress on- 
the day previous. 

On the 10th of February 1883, the late Dr. John A. Warder oflTered, at a meeting 
of the Ohio State Forestry Association, the following resolutions, which were adopted 
unanimously : 

Resolved, That we beg of all the agricultural colleges established under the land 
grant of Congress, that they shall lose no time in planting State arboreta and estab- 
lishing forest experiment stations, where all epecies adapted to the soil and climate 
shall be tested, and whence surplus seeds and plants may be distributed. Annual 
reports of these establishments to be made to the Governors or State boards of agri- 
culture. 

Resolved, That Congress be asked to establish one or more Experimental Forest 
Stations upon the public Domain, where the propagation and testing of useful 
trees shall be the leading object, with the collection of seeds and plants to be dis- 
tributed by or under the direction of the United States Agricultural Department 
to which bureau these stations shall make annual reports. 

In April, 1883, 1 advocated before the 0. S. F. A., in a paper, "Our next Problem," 
the speedy establishment of Forest Experiment Stations, and at a subsequent meet- 
ing submitted a plan of organizing such stations. 

(3 ) The St. Paid Daily Globe, of August 9, 1883, had the following in reference 
to the plan submitted by the writer : 

" Prof. N. H. Egleston, of Washington, and Mr. Memier, of Illinois, endorsed the 
paper very heartily, as a simple, practical plan that, it seemed them, would recom- 
mend itself to general favor. 

"Judge Higley, of Cincinnati, briefly explained how the plan came to be adopted 
by the Ohio Association, detailing the efforts of the society to get State aid for forest 
culture, under the head of a State forester, from the failure of which came the plan 
outhned in this paper, and which, he said, was meeting with much better success 
than was anticipated. 



50 EEPORT OF THE 

"Dr. Hough, of Lowville, thought such a plan should have a gtrong claim upon 
the leading educational institutions of a State, which could most profitably conduct 
the experiments mapped out. 

" Dr. G. B. Loring had no doubt that the stations provided for would prove a 
success in the great State of Ohio, but he thought these stations should be as closely 
;aUied with our colleges as possible. Time was, when the mention of a college in 
.connection with agriculture or forestry met with ridicule. But that time has passed, 
and as a rule, legislators, backed by public sentiment, stand ready to grant all reason- 
able aid to such institutions, and he argued that the true road to final success in 
agricultural and forestal developments was these institutions; and as necessary 
means, he urged that the best of talent and highest cultivation be secured to conduct 
them, thus placing them upon that elevated plane which their importance demanded, 
.and giving them their proper position in the scientific teachings of the day." 

Prof. N. H. Egleston, now Chief of the Forestry Division at Washington, wrote to 
jne under June 29, 1883 : 

" I am very glad to know that you have moved in this matter of establishing in 
Ohio forestal experiment stations, and so far as I understand your plan, it seems to 
me a good one. I have long thought the establishment of such stations one of the 
most important and first things to be done. I hope that you will bo able to carry 
out your plan. The example of such a great central State will encourage others to 
follow in the same direction." 

Robert Douglas, the well-known Arboriculturist of Waukegan, 111., writes me 
under September 11, 1883, in reference to the experiments proposed : "Experiments 
of this sort will teach us more, even if planted on a small scale, than the past 20 
years have taught us in all the theorizing at horticultural and forestry conventions." 

{*.) That committee consists of Prof. N. H. Egleston, of Washington, D. C; H. 
W. Morgan, of Amherstburg, Ont., with Adolph Leue, of Cincinnati, as chairman. 
Owing to the great distance at which the members of that committee reside, no meet- 
ing was effected, and no action has been taken. 



TREE CULTURE ON PRAIRIES. 

A Paper by Isaac Smucker, Ntwark, Ohio. 

The important preliminary work to be done to make Forestry a success is to en- 
lighten, instruct, inform, educate the public mind ; impress the people with the im- 
portance of it to them personally ; show them how it will prom*ote their own pecun- 
iary interests ; demonstrate to them that it will infallibly add to their wealth indi- 
vidually, as well as to the Nation's wealth, and that it will be promotive in various 
ways of comfort and health. All this and much more can be done, and ought to be 
done, with as little delay as possible. 

Forestry, if properly fostered by National and State legislation, will add im- 
mensely to the wealth of all sections of our great country. This will be eminently 
true as to all the older States, as well as to some of those of more recent admission 



OHIO FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 51 

into the Union, which in their primeval state were heavily timbered, but have 
since been largely despoiled of the most valuable portion of it. Of this there can 
be no reasonable doubt, provided that the legislation in question is sustained and 
enforced by the spontaneous and generally pervading sentiment of the people. 
And this suggests the necessity of an enlightened public sentiment in respect to 
Forestry, and no less the duty of those who are in a position to take a part in mould- 
ing public opinion. 

And if Forestry can be made thus valuable in those old settled States that were 
once thickly covered with a dense forest of trees of enormous growth, since largely 
destroyed, but where there is still a considerable remnant of them left, of how much 
greater value would it be to the present large and rapidly increasing prospective oc- 
cupants of the many millions of wholly treeless acres that now constitute our great 
western plains ? 

Believing that the promulgation of correct views and much-needed information 
on the subject would tend to the promotion of Forestry in the treeless sections of 
the United States, where, more than anywhere else, the dedication of a limited por- 
tion of the land to the cultivation of trees would advance the interests and aug- 
ment the wealth of the settlers, where, in fact, the conversion of prairie into wood- 
land would be of incalculable benefit, I propose to offer a few thoughts on " Tree 
Culture on our Prairies," trusting that I may be able to add somewhat to the inter- 
est now felt in the subject, and incidentally bring about good results. I am not able 
to offer much information based on personal experience in " Tree culture," having 
been more iconoclastic than otherwise, in that I have cut down more trees than I 
have planted, but my aim is to point out the way in which the cause of Forestry can 
be advanced and the welfare of the people be promoted. 

High authority claims that Forestry ought to be promoted because of its favor- 
able climatic effects — because it checks somewhat the waste of the water supply in 
dry seasons, by reason of diminished evaporation — because of its tendency to retard 
the flow of surface water into the usual channels during excessive rainf .dls or un- 
usual snow-melting seasons, thereby protecting to some extent against sudden inun- 
dations — and because of the admirable sanitary influence it exerts. 

Belts of forest trees in prairie countries are of great value as storm-breaks, 
serving as a protection to crops, orchards, nurseries, barns, churches, school-houses, 
and domestic animals, and very much mitigate the furious wintry blasts that often 
rage around the homes of the settlers on our western plains. How much, then, 
would the comfort of the occupants of our now timberless regions be promoted by 
planting on each farm a small grove of berry-bearing, nut-bearing and fruit-bearing 
shrubs and trees, such as the blackberry, raspberry and huckleberry, the cranberry, 
the black haws, the wild-cherry, the service berry, and many others ; of nuts, the 
pecan, the chincapin, the hazelnut, the chestnut, and others; and of fruit-bearing 
shrubs and trees, everything adapted to the soil and climate. This would be good 
Forestry, good Husbandry, too, although it has the appearance of a rather free inter- 
mingling of Horticulture and Pomology with Forestry. 

If not deemed arrogant, I would take the liberty to urge it upon all the settlers 
on the treeless lands of the United States to plant, cultivate, protect, and by all 
available means promote the growth of the different varieties of useful trees, by 
judiciously selecting such as would be likely to have a rapid and vigorous develop- 



52 REPORT OF THE 

ment — such as are best adapted to the various kinds of soils at their command, asc 
well as to the climate — the live-oak for ship building ; the walnut, the butternut, 
the wild-cherry, the curled and birds-eye maple, and others, for furniture ; the 
chestnut, the blue and white ash, many varieties of oak and pine, and others, for 
fencing and building purposes ; the hickory of different kinds, the apple, the beech,, 
the maple, the cedar, all kinds of oak and other hard-wood trees, for the manufac- 
ture of wagons, carriages, agricultural implements, planes, tools, and everything else 
for which hard-wood is indispensable ; and the bas3 or linden, the cotton wood, the 
poplar, the buckeye, the cucumber, the sycamore, the chestnut, many varieties of 
pine, and others of similar kinds, when trees of soft-wood, rapid growth and early 
maturity, are desired. As an inducement to the owners of prairie lands to carry 
into effect the foregoing suggestion, I would favor the exemption of all lands from 
taxation on which timber was successfully cultivated. 

A further suggestion would be, the passage of a law giving liberal encourage- 
ment to the planting of suitable trees along the highways, not only the kind that 
would be useful for shade, but also for the fruit they bear, and especially the sugar 
maple, for the valuable products they yield. 

On a large proportion of farms of a quarter or half section, the cultivation of a 
few acres of timber would not involve the disuse of much cultivable land for raising 
crops, or for ordinary farming purposes, as there are ravines, nooks, side-hills, hill- 
tops, comparatively barren knobs, swampy, marshy lands unsuitable for grain-grow- 
ing, or waste lands of some sort not well adapted to the plow, nor profitable for pas- 
turage, which could well be dedicated to Forestry purposes. But if there were no 
waste land, the few acres of prairie converted into woodland would be the most valu- 
able part of the farm, even if it were of the least average natural fertility. The 
vigorous growth of a very few acres of timber land, in thrifty condition, which re- 
quired but little, if any, labor, after having been well started, would certainly be of 
greater intrinsic value, and represent a greater annual profit in the enhancement in 
the value of the land and otherwise, or be more productive than a tract composed of 
an equal number of acres devoted to common husbandry, after deducting the cost of 
the labor involved in the cultivation of it. Ten acres of forest (perhaps even a 
smaller number), after having had a vigorous growth of fifteen years, would probably 
furnish for fuel and other purposes all the wood and timber required by the owner 
of a farm of ordinary size, and most of the necessary fruit in less than half that num- 
ber of years. Small fruits, when carefully cultivated and the conditions for rapid 
growth are present, may be expected in three years, and the peach tree can be 
brou<^ht into bearing in four years, the cherry tree in five years, and the apple tree,, 
the quince, the plum, and the pear tree in six years or less. And that would surely 
count more to him in dollars and cents, especially if he was in a wholly timberless 
locality and somewhat remote from a railroad where coal would necessarily be 
expensive, than the average annual profits yielded by the same quantity of land that 
was cultivated or in pasturage. 

Another suggestion I offer in this connection is, that all guarantees that are 
practicable should be afforded by legislation and in every other possible way for the 
protection of all growing timber, whether cultivated or of spontaneous growth, against 
the terrible prairie fires that oftentimes rage so fearfully over large tracts of country, 
and are so very destructive to property, and not unfrequently even to human life 



OHIO FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 53 

Itself. Certainly means can and ovght to be adopted to prevent the recurrence of 
prairie fires, if possible. The pecuniary interests of the people whose homes are on 
■the prairies, the interests of Forestry, and, above all, the interests of humanity demand 
this. These conflagrations usually result from the carelessness, recklessness, or 
viciousness of hunters or sportsmen who use fire-nrms in pursuing game in the 
autumn time, when dry grass and weed8,or other combustible substances that readily 
ignite, cover the surface of the ground. Prairie fires are largely destructive of 
nurseiies, recently planted orchards, and of young trees generally, and render it 
difficult to make tree culture a success. Forestry encounters no greater obstacles 
than prairie fires, no more potent enemies than those who carelessly or viciously 
start them. In all cases where culpability attaches, either because of carelessness or 
viciousness, there ought to be legal authority to inflict adequate punishment. 
Certainly some eflicacious means should be found to give assurance of immunity 
from the dire results of the acts of careless or reckless fowlers, tramps, and others, 
who cause such devastation on our prairies as are often witnessed." 

I take it for granted that not many of the foregoing views would be seriously 
controverted by the great body of the owners and occupants of farms on our western 
plains. They, undoubtedly, more than all others, realize the full value of woodland ; 
they know experimentally the full extent and nature of the privations its absence 
imposes ; they have an every-day realization of the importance of having a sufficient 
quantity of forest on their farms to meet the current daily demands ; they freely 
admit the indispensable necessity of planting and cultivating trees in order lo have 
woodland, and that wood and timber cannot be had in sufficient quantities to serve 
their purposes unless they do bo, except at large cost ; moreover, they are willing to 

. acknow^ledge their obligation to themselves, to posterity, and to the Commonwealth 
to thus promote Forestry. 

Why, then (these facts being admitted), has Forestry made such slow progress 
on our prairies ? Several reasons might be given ; among them is the lack of faith 
with some in its success as long as they have no protection against prairie fires ; 
another is the lack of capital ; still another, is the want of time to devote to it, even 
if the inclination were present. But I am well assured that the chief reason will be 
found in the lack of information bearing on the subject. If a prairie farmer wishes 
to convert a limited number of his acres into woodland, he of course at once inquires 
into the best methods of doing so. Can it be best accomplished, and in the shortest 
time, by starting a nursery and afterwards transplanting from it, or by sowing or 
planting the seeds and nuts where the shrubs and trees are to remain ? Shall he 
plant the walnuts where he wishes a walnut grove, the chestnuts, the hickory -nuts, 
the butternuts, the acorns, the beech-nuts where he wishes groves of those trees, or 
can it be done better otherwise ? He should know the proper time in the year for 
sowing or planting seeds and nuts, and for transplanting, and what kinds of trees are 
best adapted to his soil and climate. He wishes to know just how he can grow a 
forest with the least labor and bring it into utilization in the shortest possible time, 
and with the smallest outlay of money. He also needs to be enlightened as to the 
best methods of sowing seeds, of planting nuts, and of transplanting shrubs and 
trees, and of the cultivation, protection and management generally of gro\<ing 
timber. In view of ihe foregoing facts, it seems to be quite clear that one of the 

j>rairie farmers' needs is a brief Treatise on Forestry, written in popular style, adapted 



54 REPORT OF THE 

to the capacity of comaion minds — one that can be understood by every man that 
can read the English language ; a book, in short, that shall contain all the informa- 
tion suggested in this paragraph, and everything else bearing on Forestry that every 
agriculturist on our prairies ought to possess ; and further, said disquisition ought to 
be compressed into as small a space as practicable, not to exceed 200, or at most 300 
pages (duodecimo), and furnished at a nominal price, so that it may find its way into 
as many homes as possible. 

Is such a treatise accessible at present ? I am not very familiar with the style 
and character of Forestry literature, and know not how well the public needs are 
met in this regard ; but if there is no such book in the market, or, better still, one of 
smaller dimensions, than the one above suggested, it seems to me that the best ser- 
vice that can now be rendered to Forestry would be to take immediate measures to 
get just such a little book into the hands of a hundred thousand of the "tillers of the- 
soil" on our almost boundless Western plains. And that could probably be well 
done, and speedily, by the Ohio Forestry Association. Forestry associations, also agri- 
cultural and kindred societies, would be appropriate and efficient instrumentalities 
to assist in placing such a volume in a hundred thousand libraries, where it would 
be accessible to half a million of readers eager to possess themselves of the valuable 
information it contained. The little book should not be copy-righted — then the aid 
of the local weekly newspapers, also of agricultural papers, and of other publications 
like the New York Weekly Tribune, and of many others that have well conducted 
agricultural departments, and circulate extensively on the prairies, could be invoked 
to "lend a helping hand" in imparting the valuable practical instruction it contained, 
by republishing the whole of it, in parts, or portions of it, at their discretion. 
Forestry, by the liberal and persevering use of such means, would receive a great 
impetus, and be more popularized than by the use of any or all other present available 
instrumentalities. 



THE OHIO FLOOD OF 1883. 

By Prof. N. H. Eglkston, 

Chief of the Forestry Division at Washington, D. C. 

[Read ai Cincinnati, April, 1883.] 

The recent flood of the Ohio River, so remarkable as a phenomenon, attracting- 
the attention of the whole country by its unusual volume and the destruction of 
property, as well as life, which attended it, should not be allowed to subside without 
teaching, not only those in its immediate vicinity, but the people of the country at 
large, an important lesson. If the proper instruction to be derived from the disas- 
trous occurrence can be brought home to the public so as to lead them to appropriate 
action in the future, the knowledge thus obtained will not be too dearly purchased,, 
even at the cost of the sufl'erings and losses occasioned by the flood. 



OHIO FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 55 

It has been known to the few for a considerable period that there is a connec- 
tion between the condition of the forests of any country, and the floods and drouths 
which occur. It has been observed that where the forests along the courses of 
streams have been cut off, and in proportion as they have been cut oflf, both floods 
and drouths have increased. Multitudes of people, residents of the open country in 
distinction from those resident in cities, have observed that the streams with which 
they have been familiar from childhood have shrunk in size, while also more liable 
both to floods and drouths than formerly. They have known at the same time that 
a warfare has been waged upon the trees which has materially lessened their num- 
bers, and in many cases exterminated them throughout considerable tracts of country. 
These several facts have been known to many, but they have failed to connect in the 
way of cause and effect. They have regarded them as separate and independent facts. 

And yet it requires but a little observation to see that there is a close connection 
between these facts. If one will only notice the condition of the soil, or of. the sur- 
face of the ground where trees have long been growing in masses, he can hardly fail 
to see that it must have an important influence upon streams flowing in their vicinity. 
The shelter of forest-covered ground from the sun's rays prevents the evaporation of 
its moisture, and the consequent comparative dryness and hardness characteristic of 
the open and unsheltered ground. In addition to this, the annual shedding of the 
foliage of the trees gradually accumulates upon the surface of the ground a covering 
of leaf-mold, sometimes reaching several feet in depth. This is of a light, loose^ 
absorbent texture. The whole forest area thus becomes, as it were, a great sponge^ 
which absorbs and retains the moisture that is precipitated from the clouds in the 
form of rain, or which results from melting snow, not allowing it to flow away at 
once, but, as it percolates slowly through the absorbent mass, sending it off in gentle 
and steady streams. And so it is well understood that the water-courses which pro- 
ceed from forest-covered districts furnish a uniform and steady supf.ly of water, 
whether for purposes of agriculture or transportation, or for manufacturinij. Of 
course in regions where the snows accumulate to a considerable depth there will he 
an augmented flow of water, as these melt in spring-time, but it will not be so great 
as to occasion trouble or disaster. So, also, there will be some lessening of flow in 
mid-summer. But this will not be of an injurious character. The supply will be on 
the whole steady and uniform. 

Quite different is the case where the forests have been removed. As the trees 
are taken away and the surface of the ground is exposed to the sun and wind, the 
first effect is to dry the spongy leaf-covering. As this dries the winds sweeps it away. 
The spongy covering is thus gradually diminished. The falling rains or melting- 
snows flow off more rapidly than before. The hill-sides begin to be marked by more 
numerous and deeper-cut water-courses. Finally, when the absorbent covering has 
been completely removed, and there is no longer anything to detain the water, it 
rushes off at once, after any considerable rainfall, or when the snows melt rapidly 
and fills the beds of the streams and rivers, and causes them to overflow their banks^ 
often making floods which become disastrous because the natural channels are un- 
able to carry off the rapidly accumulating waters. For the same reason, because there 
is no great spongy storehouse left to retain the water w^hich falls from the clouds 
and to act as a reservoir supply, from which we might draw steadily through the 



56 IlErORT OF THE 

summer time, we are then liable to have drouths, from which much snfferiug in 
various ways arises. 

Such is the simple explanation of the cause of floods and drouths as they ordi- 
narily occur. The facts of the case, though they have been known by thoughtful 
observers among us for some time, have only of late years been brought before the 
general public. But in Europe they are much better and more widely known. The 
1 onnecti jU between forests and floods is there well understood, and in most European 
countries the due preservation of forests, on account of their recognized influence 
upon the water supply, as well as their climatic effects, is regarded as of the first 
importance. In many of them the Bureau of Woods and Streams is considered one 
of the most important departments of Government. In France the most stringent 
laws have been framed for the protection of forests. The owners of forests are not 
allowed, as with us, to cut their woodlands at their pleasure, but only to such an ex- 
tent and in such places as may be designated by the forest masters appointed by the 
State. And where the forests have been cut off contrary to the law or before the 
legal restrictions were established, the Government insists that the ground shall be 
replanted, and if this is not done by the proprietor the Government, asserting the 
right of eminent domain, takes the land into its own possession and plants it, allowing 
the owner to recover possession, however, within a certain number of years on pay- 
ment of the cost of planting. 

We are only just beginning to learn the meaning and the importance of forestry, 
but we have begun to learn what is none too soon. In Sweden forestry is taught in 
the public schools. Every school-house, in the villages at least, is obliged to have 
sufficient land connected with it to allow of the planting and cultivation of trees and 
plants by the pupils under the direction of the teacher. Would that we had some 
such regulation in connection with our country schools. It would be healthful in 
more respects than one. It is greatly to the credit of Cincinnati thiat sh6 is giving 
her schools practical lessons in forestry, a notable one of which was witnessed in 
Eden Park a year ago. 

At the opening of the late session of Congress, forestry, for the first time, became 
a subject of attention in a Presidential message, and in the census of 1880, a compen- 
dium of which has recently been published, the attempt has been made for the first 
time to ascertain the extent and condition of our forests. The special agent to whom 
this work has been intrusted has published from time to time maps so constructed as 
to show the extent and character of the timber growth in the States and Territories. 
The map of West Virginia appeared on the 1st of March last, and oflfered itself at 
once as a clear and striking commentary upon the Ohio flood, which was at that very 
time arresting public attention. The map is so colored as to show at a glance the 
portions of the State from which the valuable timber has been removed, the regions 
of hard-wood forests, the regions abounding in spruce and those abounding in the 
white pine. As the eye glances at the western portion of the State it is seen at 
once that every affluent of the Ohio River has been stripped of the forests through 
which it formerly flowed. The Great and Little Kanawha, the Elk, the Guyandotte, 
the Big Sandy, not to mention lesser streams, all these have had their forests stripped 
away, except, perhaps, upon their very head waters. The map of the forests of 
Ohio has not yet been published, but doubtless it would present a similar picture, 



OHIO FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 57 

while the map of Pennsj'lvania shows the Allegheny and IMonongahela flowing 
through their long courses almost unshaded by forests. 

With such pictures and such facts before us, can we doubt as to the cause of the 
recent devastating flood which rushed by and through this great city ? It was simply 
that over this great river basin, embracing half a dozen States, the soil had been so 
far stripped of its trees and its leafy covering that it could no longer drink up and 
retain, even for a few days, the rain that fell upon it and the water formed by the 
dissolving snow, and so the combined waters of this great area slid down the smooth 
hill-sides and into the river channels at once. The task thus put upon the river 
courses, and especially upon that of the Ohio, was more than they could bear. The 
banks were overflowed, and wide-spread damage and disaster necessarily followed. 

But it is said there have been other great floods ; one, at least, nearly equal to 
the recent one, many years ago, before the forests were to any considerable extent 
destroyed. The fact is not to be denied. Nor do we need to deny it in order to 
establish the connection between the destruction of forests and the occurrence of 
floods. All rules have their exceptions. Some unusual combination of circum- 
stances may occasion a flood even where forests abound. If there has been an extra- 
ordinary fall of snow during the winter, or if it has not dissolved gradually during 
the snow season, but has remained on the surface of the ground to be melted rapidly 
and all at once, as it were, and when the surface of the ground is, to a considerable 
extent, frozen and impervious, and especially if an uncommon rainfall adds its 
waters to the melting snow, then we may have a combination of influences that will 
produce a flood whether forests be abundant or not. But these are clearly excep- 
tional cases, and the principle remains that forests do, as a general thing, protect the 
country adjacent to them from destructive floods, and from corresponding drouths. 
If we would avoid either or both of these evils we must protect our forests. If we 
have already brought these evils upon us by our reckless destruction of the forests, 
there is but one remedy. It is the reproduction of the forests by fresh planting, and 
as this is the only, it is also the sure remedy. The cry of the flood is, "Restore 
vour forests," and the broken dams of the manufacturer, the desolated fields of the 
agriculturists, the choked channels of commerce and the pitiful faces of the hun- 
dreds and thousands who have lost property and become the victims of poverty and 
disease by reason of the floods, repeat the cry, " Restore your forests." 



FOREST CONDITION OF OHIO, 



AS SHOWN BY THE 



Report of the Forestry Division of the United States 
Department of AgricnUure. 



FOREST CONDITION OF OHIO. 



The foUowing'letter, from Hon. George B. Loring, Commissioner of Agriculture, 
explains the character of the ensuing report. Acting upon its suggestions, Governor 
Foster, in a special message, called the attention of the Legislature to the subject, 
and action was taken by that body which resulted in the present publication. It 
will be seen that the chart is virtually the report, presenting in a graphic manner, 
the very important facts with which it deals: 

LETTER OF COMMISSIONER LORING. 



I 



Department of Agriculture, 
Washington, D. C, December 27, 1883. 

Sir : In the investigations which this department is prosecuting in regard to 
the condition of the country in respect to its forests, their distribution, the rate of 
their diminution, and so forth, a very complete report has recently been received in 
regard to the forest condition of the State of Ohio. This report is of more than 
usual value, because based largely upon official data. The forest area of the State 
is given by counties, as it existed at the dates 1853, 1870, and 1881. It will be seen 
from the figures that there has been a constant decrease of the wooded area in 
every county, and what is specially deserving of notice, that the decrease has been 
most rapid in the period since 1870. 

The agent of the department has also con.structed a graphic sheet, from the 
figures given in the tables, which shows at a glance the areas of cleared and wuoded 
lands at the diff'erent periods named and the relative diminution of the forest area. 

From the percentage of waste and woodland combined, as given in the final 
summation of table B., it will be seen that the forest area of Ohio is already below 
the limit which is consistent with the highest salubrity of atmosphere as well as 
the greatest prosperity of the agricultural and commercial interests of the State. 

The facts set forth in the report are of such importance that I have deemed it 
advisable to communicate them to you, for reference to the Legislature soon to con- 
vene, or for such suggestions to that body as you may be disposed to make. I in- 
close, therefore, a copy of the report. Very respectfully, 

Geo. B. Loeing, 

Commissioner. 
Bis Excellency, Charles Foster, Governor, Columbus, 0. 



OHIO FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 61 



EXPLANATION OF CHART. 



Each county is represented by a black line square. The left-hand vertical 
column "A:' "A." represents the year 1853 ; "5." B, 1870, and "C." "C"., 1880. The 
space between the columns represents the years intervening between the dates 
given. The horizontal red lines, numbered 10, 20, 30, etc., represents percentages. 
The blue line represents the amount of forest and cleared land at the dates given — 
18.53, 1870, 1880. The dotted lines D. E. F. would show the proportion in forest at 
the given dates. 

Table "A." represents Adams county .as having 90.06 per cent, in forest in 1853, 
43.98 per cent, in 1870, and 34.05 per cent, in 1880. The blue line commencing on 
column A. A., at 90.06, crosses column B. B. at 43.98, and stops on C C at 34.05. 
Then the dotted line F. shows the amount of forest in 1880. 

The sudden declination of the blue line, after crossing the vertical column B. B. 
in most of the counties, shows the accelerated rate of consumption of the forests, 
and at tlie same ratio of consumption, in another decade, some of the counties will 
be treeless plains. 



62 



KEPORT OF THE 
TABLE "A." 



The Number of Acres in Forest, and the .Percentage of Forest Area by 
Counties in the State of Ohio, as reported for the Years 1853, 1870, 1881. 



Counties. 



Adams 

Allen 

Ashland 

Ashtabula... 

Athens 

Auglaize 

Belmont 

Brown 

Butler 

Carroll 

Champaign 

Clarke 

Clermont ... 

Clinton 

Columbiana 
Coshocton . 
Crawford ... 
Cuyahoga... 

Darke 

Defiance 

Delaware ... 

Erie 

Fairfield 

Fayette 

Franklin 

Fulton 

Gallia 

Geauga 

Greene 

Guernsey ... 
Hamilton .. 
Hancock .... 

Hardin 

Harrison 

Henry 

Highland... 

Hocking 

Holmes 

Huron 

Jackson 

Jefferson.... 

Knox 

Lake 

Lawrence .... 

Licking 

Logan 

Lorain 

Lucas 

Madison .... 
Mahoning .. 
Marion 



Number of acres in forest. 



1853. 



280,213 
191,164 
107,-596 
222.988 
204,598 
19rt,356 
140,046 
159,719 
100,671 

85,026 
112,143 

98,813 
(a)141,488 
112,088 
133,793 
169,735 
114,535 
114,372 
2.56,200 
224 327 
156,688 

57,5.50 
125,772 
131.004 
165,409 
206,948 
192,497 

99,992 
116,568 
115,106 

88,123 
235,398 
241,447 

96,580 

(a) 103,475 

168,334 

181,391 

95,224 

155,289 

(a) 19.5,4 11 

107,093 

143,988 

50,795 
245,655 
181,718 
142,139 
180,107 
162,023 
132,999 

96,100 
130,142 



1870. 



135,201 

128,809 

75,190 

143,490 

146,692 

137,509 

97,179 

103,889 

64,975 

63,356 

81,050 

60,560 

72,502 

80,740 

88,505 

123,683 

76,714 

85,652 

172.603 

173,283 

96,665 

43,409 

89,409 

79,637 

103,908 

147,886 

126,045 

63,458 

72,531 

107,457 

34,473 

161,0.55 

182,202 

65,375 

(a) 118,240 

107,490 

125,223 

(6)105,503 

89,519 

109,070 

87,440 

92,251 

32,828 

194,516 

111,861 

120,823 

84,999 

131,235 

90,612 

68,754 

90,359 



1881. 



86,888 
60,693 
47,866 
63,700 
57,437 
60,720 
57,994 
52,185 
36,198 
45,117 
62,667 
32,062 
37,935 
40.676 
56,290 
69,967 
43,111 
25,748 
82,040 
72,125 
50,234 
13,862 
50,219 
32,495 
38,346 
62,783 
59.523 
45,818 
40,798 
65.244 
12,954 
80,713 
61,479 
41,442 
60,073 
65,095 
64,323 
56,888 
44,434 
42,637 
51,801 
(c)62,24l 
18,657 
38.213 
66,575 
58,421 
42,030 
26 599 
24,659 
41, .537 
39,480 



Percentage of area in 




forest. 




1853. 


1870. 


1881. 


91.06 


43.98 


34.05 


74.56 


50.25 


31.09 


40.92 


28.60 


20.71 


50.75 


32.66 


17.13 


66.88 


47.95 


19.15 


79.25 


55.51 


30.97 


41.51 


28.81 


19.59 


52.28 


34.00 


20.27 


34.71 


22.40 


18.70 


33.99 


25.33 


20.29 


42 28 


30.55 


23.97 


39.63 


24.35 


16.13 


(a)50.00 


25.62 


17.31 


48.35 


31.65 


18.51 


39.55 


26.18 


20.77 


48.10 


35.03 


23.7f 


45.20 


30.42 


20.73 


41.65 


31.19 


12.97 


68.08 


45.86 


26.78 


87 14 


67.29 


39.35 


5.5.31 


34.12 


21.13 


36.51 


27..53 


11.40 


39 75 


26.67 


17.93 


52.43 


29.85 


15.33 


49.29 


30.96 


1.5.52 


80.51 


57.51 


30.22 


66.99 


43.87 


26.49 


35.89 


24.75 


20.93 


44.02 


28.04 


18.41 


47.51 


32.90 


22.71 


37.70 


14.76 


10.94 


69.82 


47.77 


27.77 


86.82 


64.72 


30.05 


37.65 


25.48 


19.12 


(a)61.00 


(»)4.5.11 


38.13 


48.64 


31.04 


21.39 


68.18 


47.08 


29.05 


37.81 


(?))41 09 


16.53 


50.73 


29.24 


16.42 


(a) 75.00 


4186 


20.48 


41.51 


33.95 


23.09 


43.69 


28.01 


21.68 


36.88 


23 86 


17.45 


88.25 


69.88 


19.73 


42..52 


26.18 


17.45 


50.53 


42.95 


25.42 


59.28 


27.97 


16,64 


81.00 


65.60 


26.18 


45.45 


30.98 


11.75 


36.50 


26.15 


20.15 


51.28 


35.61 


19.56 




"""' '"-""'"K ">« ~ndiUo„ of Fores.,7 in each county in Ohio, for Ihe years, Isli^iiTiii^ 



OHIO FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 
TABLE "B"— Continued. 



63 



Counties. 



Medina 76,840 

Meigs 191,213 

Mercer (a)209,027 

Miami 120,822 

Monroe 159,407 

Montgomery 104,056 

Morgan 136,465 

Morrow 119,829 

Muskingum 189,605 

Noble 124,875 

Ottawa 151,428 

Paulding 251,825 

Perry 101,885 

Pickaway 143,719 

Pike 184,724 

Portage 102,904 

Preble 121,619 

Putnam 265,072 

Richland 127,173 

Koss 214,485 

Sandusky 163,213 

Scioto....". ! 233,493 



Number of acres in forest. 



1853. 



Seneca., 

Shelby 

Stark 

Summit 

Trumbull .... 
Tuscarawas . 

Union 

Van Wert.... 

Vinton 

Warren 

Washington . 

AVayne 

AVilliams 

AVood 

Wyandot .... 



Totals. 



171,980 
180,220 
114,544 
82,028 
157,675 
153,658 
187,958 
236,088 
194,332 
100,903 
269,357 
154,676 
201,113 
337,760 
161,476 



13,991,228 



1870. 



60,938 

121,416 

177,235 

82,621 

115,564 

68,340 

90,038 

78,406 

127,982 

78,303 

119,059 

230,240 

69,968 

89,281 

140,984 

76,600 

82,785 

216,320 

88,797 

161,084 

110,156 

197,937 

117,151 

120,282 

75,222 

59,078 

115,932 

106,525 

131,873 

186,408 

152,873 

61,557 

179,289 

94,933 

145,051 

267,946 

115,336 



9,749,333 



1881. 



43,237 
58,049 

85,722 
33,350 
69,413 
37,766 
51,658 
45,8154 
68,550 
45,358 
27,790 
53,068 
39,709 
41,909 
71,612 
49,474 
52,970 
83,844 
62,549 
102,206 
49,352 
62,548 
65,128 
61,709 
62,842 
29,859 
67,032 
61,178 
44,993 
76,448 
65,878 
30,316 
97,914 
58,726 
64,529 
86,067 
72.585 



4,732,092 



Percentage of area m 
forest. 



1853. 



29.39 
73.25 
(a)76.67 
47.81 
55.38 
36.53 
52.38 
47.33 
45.54 
49.17 
93.00 
96.83 
39.77 
46.13 
73.52 
33.03 
45.62 
87.98 
41.27 
48.73 
63.85 
77.77 
49.81 
70.30 
32.24 
32.95 
40.32 
43.00 
69.00 
91.30 
75.33 
40.00 
68.62 
45.20 
75.96 
88.19 
63.17 

55.27 



1870. 1881 



23.31 
46.51 
63.58 
32.69 
40.13 
24.01 
34.57 
30.97 
30.67 
30.83 
.09 
88 81 
27.31 
28.66 
56.09 
24.59 
31.06 
71.81 
28.81 
38.38 
43.07 
65.94 
33.93 
46.91 
21.17 
23.72 
29.65 
29.81 
48.40 
71.11 
59.25 
24.40 
45.66 
27.40 
54.76 
69.98 
45.13 

38.51 



18.44 
28.04 
38.58 
18.15 
27.23 
16.33 
22.12 
20.63 
19.93 
19.40 
25.89 
51.74 
18.94 
15.80 
37.45 
18.22 
22.35 
39.13 
22.85 
30.26 
22.92 
34.89 
2196 
24.25 
17.28 
14.52 
20.15 
19.85 
13.30 
43.59 
35.26 
15.85 
30.58 
20.50 
29.55 
34.92 
28.75 



20.79 



Note— (a) Estimated, {b) Apparently erroneous, (o) Lauds lying waste. 



64 



REPORT OF TUE 
TABLE "B." 



Acreage of Woodlands and Lands lying waste in the Several Counties of 

Onio, IN 188L 



Counties. 



Adams 

Allen 

Ashland 

Ashtabula.. 

Athens 

Auglaize ... 

Belmont 

Brown 

Butler 

Carroll 

Champaign 

Clarke 

Clermont.... 

Clinton 

Columbiana 
(yoshocton.. 
Crawford ... 
Cuyahoga ... 

Darke 

Defiance , 

Delaware.... 

Erie 

Fairfield 

Fayette 

Franklin .... 

Fulton 

Gallia 

Geauga 

Greene 

Guernsey .. 
Hamilton .. 
Hancock .... 

Hardin 

Harrison .... 

Henry 

Highland 

Hocking 

Holmes 

Huron 

Jackson 

Jefferson .... 

Knox 

Lake 

Lawrence .. 

Licking 

Logan 

Lorain 

Lucas 

Madison 

Mahoning... 

Marion 

Medina 

Meigs 



Acres of 
woodlands 
and waste. 



Percentage 

to total 

area. 



95,327 


37.35 


62,704 


32.12 


49,619 


21.54 


6«,848 


18.54 


65,971 


21.99 


66,245 


33.75 


68,757 


23.11 


61,027 


23.71 


46,697 


2413 


45,348 


20.39 


62,667 


23.97 


34,385 


1749 


54,329 


24.79 


44,123 


20.10 


61,614 


22.74 


73,947 


25.16 


44,094 


21.20 


30,879 


15.55 


89,649 


29.27 


76,335 


41.65 


52,378 


22.03 


18,839 


15.49 


53,999 


20.35 


33,.541 


15.83 


44,022 


17.81 


69,889 


33.22 


66,251 


29.49 


47,053 


21.49 


48,621 


21.89 


66,376 


23.13 


27,636 


23.33 


82,881 


28.99 


64,906 


32.21 


42,248 


19.49 


62,034 


39.38 


71,443 


23.81 


74,771 


33.79 


66,287 


18.13 


48,148 


17.79 


61,7.59 


29.19 


61,321 


27.34 


62,241 


21.68 


20,679 


19.34 


91,234 


48.00 


69,793 


18.21 


61,686 


26.83 


43,106 


17.17 


30,171 


29.75 


25,146 


11.98 


43,397 


21.03 


41,831 


20.73 


45,774 


19.52 


63,366 


30.60 



OHIO FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 
TABLE "B."— Continued. 



66 



Counties. 



Mercer 

Miami 

Monroe 

Montgomery., 

Morgan 

Morrow 

Muskingum ., 

Noble 

Ottawa 

Paulding 

Perry 

Pickaway 

Pike 

Portage 

Preble 

Putnam 

Richland 

Ross 

Sandusky 

Scioto 

Seneca 

Shelby 

Stark 

Summit 

Trumbull 

Tuscarawas... 

Union 

Van Wert 

Vinton 

Warren 

Washington .. 

Wayne 

Williams 

Wood 

Wyandot 



Acres of 
woodlands 
and waste. 



Total. 



89,777 
36,753 
78,002 
49,544 
54,583 
47,768 
77,540 
47,730 
38,212 
53,756 
40,695 
48,915 
80,847 
53,979 
59,770 
85,811 
67,523 
127,524 
55,388 
98,801 
66,772 
63,666 
67,533 
35,693 
70,598 
69,495 
45,675 
78,620 
81,264 
36,173 
106,642 
64,929 
66,995 
89,031 
74,413 

5,309,383 



Percentage 

to total 

area. 



40.40 
20.00 
30.59 
21.42 
23.37 
21.50 
22.22 
20.42 
35.54 
62.41 
19.41 
18.44 
42.28 
19.89 
25.23 
40.63 
24.66 
37.57 
25.72 
55.21 
22.52 
25.02 
18.57 
17.35 
21.22 
22.55 
13.51 
44.82 
43.61 
18.92 
33.30 
22.66 
80.69 
36.13 
29.47 

25.13 



5* 



; 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

List of Officers of State Forestry Association 3 

History of the Association, by Adolph Leue, Secretary 5-8 

Minutes of the meeting at Columbus &-11 

Forests and Forestry — An Address by Hon. Warren Higley, President 11-23 

Hints from Nature on Forest Culture — A paper by M. C. Read, Esq 23-25 

Arbor Day Celebrations— An Address by Dr. John B. Feaslee 25-40 

Profits of Forest Culture— A paper by Hon. Emil Rothe 40-44 

Forestal Experiment Stations — A paper by Adolph Leue, Secretary...^ 44-60 

Tree Culture on Prairies — A paper by Isaac Smucker, Esq 50-64 

The Ohio Flood of 1883— A paper by Prof. N. H. Egleston 64-57 

Report of Forest Condition of Ohio— by Forestry Division of IT. S. Depart- 
ment of Agriculture 60-66 



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